Mousecapades

I don't what it is with us. I am telling you that we have some ridiculous mouse stories. I have lots of news to share other than this. But this is good. I must share. We have a cat. She is the coolest cat ever-Until she brings creatures home and lets them loose in our home. Our home is home enough to enough creatures. She has brought in so many fledgling birds that after the 3rd that I had to take to the bird rescue place, I thought I should start giving them monetary donations since we keep them busy. It's one thing to take a bird in a box to the bird rescue place way down to the middle of nowhere. That is the easy part. But that bird didn't just jump in the box because we asked it to. Socks likes to find mice. She brings them in as playthings then gets bored and lets them go. They aren't dead yet! It is a family effort with cool whip bowls as we try to capture the scurrying little things that we didn't invite in the house. But there was one that met it's death by the accidental stomping under Amber's shoe. She taught that mouse a lesson about crawling up human legs. Oh wait, it won't remember because it died instantly. Then there was the cute baby mouse that was too cute and little that it was captured and put into a hamster cage as a pet for time until it died from some sort of health issue. So now you know how silly we are with uninvited creatures into our home, I will tell you my current story. Lee Joe is in his Semi these days more than our cars. As a result we have two cars that get him home. Our KIA is spending a lot of lonely days that has become weeks out in Grand View. But where he parks it is in a fenced area in the middle of a field. The car wasn't that lonely when he got home a few weeks ago. He found several mice. As he was chasing the mice out of his car he found a nest, with 4 babies. This is the man that takes some of the mice brought home by our cat and kills them by means I will not share. I will keep this blog G rated. So yes, this manly man found 4 uninvited baby mice with their uninvited mama in his car. Mama was hiding under the car somewhere and since he couldn't get her and reunite her with her babies and put them elsewhere, they came home with him in the car. Then he let mama find her way back to her babies and then he got the hamster cage we had and put them inside. He brought them inside to rest on our fireplace covered by his jacket. I was surprised to hear we had new visitors. Because he covered them with his coat I also kind of forgot they were there. I had checked on them once. But then I was cleaning house over spring break and I took the jacket off and I look at the cage and the plastic lid has a hole in it. 'Was that there before?' I ask myself. I don't know. Did she chew her way out? I hope not. It wasn't even an hour later when Hannah says "Mom, I think there's a mouse under the stove or it's a dust bunny. I can't tell." She's looking trying to figure it out. I just resign myself. Oh yes, mouse has escaped but I know she wants to find her babies and I don't want to hunt under the stove for her. Then I am near the front door and I see something move out from under the stove but it looks like part of a leaf is sitting on the floor in front of the stove. I just keep going along wishing Lee Joe was there to catch his mouse. Grumbling at what I am going to need to do to get mama to her babies. But I am not going to do it now either. Fifteen minutes later Autumn comes up the stairs and says " Mom! There's a mouse?" "Where?" "Under the bookshelf." OK, now it's time to catch this mouse. We hunt for bowls and I call all the girls I have home to come help me. We have a piece of posterboard, A handle to my swiffer and a couple of girls with bowl in their hands to try to catch her. Back and forth and she goes under the shelf, under the fish tank. So I try to pull the bookshelf out. I am hoping she doesn't totally run off. But a picture frame fell off and landed on the floor right where she was. We didn't know if it hit her. But she was beside it. She was probably deaf now because it was crazy loud. She was OK and not a super fast mouse. I think it took ten more minutes and we caught her. She was reunited with her babies and we put a larger variety of food in there. After that scare I think she realized she was safe and there were no more escapes. She is cute. Not a house mouse. I looked her up and she was a deer mouse. And then I read that they can give you a terrible illness. And I couldn't wait for her release. I couldn't change her nest bedding but it got REALLY smelly. So I was ready for their release. Everyone where I work thinks we are crazy. But the deer mice were released back into the wild last weekend. Lee Joe dug a hole and had a piece of wood to cover the hole for protection. He said he tried to slide them carefully out the cage but the mama kept trying to run back in. But they were stocked with seed in their new home and they are not in mine any more. So here is my blog on our silly mice drama. I will let this sit a couple days or at least till tomorrow before I share the really fantastic and drama filled news I am so excited to share. Many of you already know but I have to really "Talk" about here then just blurb on Facebook about it.