Our yard birds are always hungry so keeping the bird feeder stocked is a daily chore.    Yesterday when I made my morning trip to the gardening shed,  I got a little surprise.  Being an old desert rat, I’m always  careful to look around  when I open the door to the shed and keep watch when I pop the lid on the plastic bird seed bin.  No snakes in the vicinity, looks good.  I opened the lid to the seed and there sat a very fat little mouse. Mickey’s little jaws were chewing like crazy.  

 

Of course I did what I always do, I called for the man of the house.  Every wife knows that taking care of wild critters is on the husband’s chore list.  Mickey was a cute little mouse but the birds are already eating us out of house and home I didn’t want to add this little guy to the freeloader list.  We decided he’d be happier living out in the wild, on the other side of the patio wall.   Figuring out how to get him out there was another matter. 

I had a plan in mind and I provided the needed, although not requested, advice on how Monty should handle the situation.  Unsolicited advice is on the wife’s list.  My plan; catch Mickey in a jelly jar, quickly slap cardboard on the top and take him outside the yard.  After brief consideration, Monty looked at me with that head shaking expression every wife knows.

 Monty proceeded to do the logical thing, simply tipped the bin until the mouse could jump out.  Monty danced a little jig when the disoriented mouse tried to run up his pant leg, but eventually Mickey headed for the shrubbery and was out of sight. Of course he is going to take up residence in the yard now instead of outside the wall, but as long as Miss Daisy doesn’t discover him, I guess it will be OK.

 Our previous encounter with a mouse happened while we were traveling a few years ago.  Produce stands in other parts of the  country, where they actually have good produce, are a favorite stopping place for us when we travel. On this trip we managed to find some great cherries.  We kept the snack handy on the counter top in the motorhome.

 I found some coffee grounds on the counter and thought that was strange because we are usually pretty tidy.  While we were happily eating our cherries we noticed a couple of them seemed to be damaged.   Look at the funny little marks, wait those look like . . . argggghhh they  are teeth marks. Those weren’t coffee grounds on the counter!  YIKES, we have a mouse in the motorhome and he apparently likes cherries.

Off to Walmart for a mouse trap; do you know someone really did invent a better mouse trap?  Gone are the days of smashing their little heads under the snapper.  They now have a disk type contraption about the size of a saucer, simply drop the bait inside, and with a flick of the wrist it is all set.   We poked a cherry through the little hole and set the dial.  Presto the next morning we had a mouse in the disk.  We never had to actually see the tiny little pink ears or the cute little whiskers.  We just set the disk outside and opened the little door. The motorhome next door was from Idaho, I hope the little guy liked his new home. 

Last night when we took Miss Daisy out for her last potty break, she came scurrying back into the house and ran over to sat in her kennel.  Monty said she was spooked by the hoot of a nearby owl.  I’m not sure, but maybe the owl spied Mickey running around the yard and was ready for a late night snack. 

It’s a jungle out there.