Poor L'il Mr. Mousie ...

When I pulled out the garbage can to toss in some crumbs, there was a l'il grey house mouse in it. I don't know if it was Mr. Mousie from yesterday who'd escaped and was back, or another Mr. Mousie. I plunked the tin that was in my hand down over top of him, then plunked the breadboard on top of the garbage can. There was much scrabbling, and I noticed that the top of the garbage can is not flush, leaving a more-than-large-enough gap for Mr. Mousie to escape if he could climb up to it ... so I peeked, of course.

No, he didn't escape (this time), but he was perched on top of the tin, reaching for that not-flush edge with 'is wee l'il skittery, grabby paws. So I plunked the bread board back on top and gave the whole mess a little shake, then another. There was scrabbling, then none. When I peeked again, Mr. Mousie was curled up on his back inside the tin, with a bloody noggin and I was sad. I'm sorry, Mr. Mousie.

I would have been okay with one of the cats having Mr. Mousie for a snack, or with killing him in a quick-kill trap (if that had been the type of trap I'd bought). This is my house and mousies are not welcome to live here ... but I'd rather relocate them than dash in their little brains.

What A Day ...

I opened the cupboard under the sink this morning and there was Mr. Mousie, doing his balance beam trick on the edge of the garbage pail again. He looked like he was going to try leaping through the hole into the rest of the cupboards, so I reached in to wiggle the garbage pail, startled him, and he dove into the pail. I tied up the bag, took it straight out to the garbage can and put the lid on, all without taking my eyes off the bag, just in case. Pick-up was today. if he didn't slip out of the bag unnoticed and if he didn't escape from the garbage can and if he didn't scoot out when the garbage was emptied, maybe he'll get to winter at the smorgasbord that is the dump.

Holey creepin' crud, it was so warm out! And it just kept getting warmer. A primped tough guy in a muscle car revved his engine behind me in the left-turn lane at the lights, creeping up on my tail, then roared past me in the intersection, only to stop in front of me down the block at the Hughes. That's where I was going, too. We both filled our tanks and washed our cars. I came away with change from a twenty. He went from sneering to, "Dude. No way."

I sat on the front steps for a while, reading. It was 25°C, clear and sunny and that deep summer blue. I went to get chase Nina out into the warm from the basement and by the time I got back, it was 20°C, breezy, and clabbering up. Pretty soon it was 15°C and windy, then 10°C and cloudy and the wind had shifted. Now it's 2°C and calm. It was fascinating to watch. Every now and then Alberta lives up to the "Don't like the weather? Wait an hour."

Mouse Opera ...

I opened the cupboard under the sink yesterday and saw a wee little grey mousie. Yikes!

Mary took her truck in for service this morning and I picked her up at the dealership at Dark O'Clock. We came back here to feed the cats and cleaned and bleached the cutting board of its copious mousie evidence. We went outing and abouting and picked up traps at Canadian Tire in our travels. We poodled about for the rest of the day, went back to the dealership when her truck was finished, and then I came home and set the traps with peanut butter.

I was checking the traps ('cuz I was worried that the poor little guy would freak out being in such a small space for too long) and when I opened the cupboard under the sink, there he was, doing his best balance beam trick on the edge of the garbage can. I startled him and he jumped up onto the drainpipe, lost his footing, and fell into a bucket. I pulled out the bucket and plopped the bread board on top before he could jump out. Cotched!

Tiger just about let him out by jumping on the bread board and near-tipping the whole mess over, so I moved the whole thing into the oven ... but the door wouldn't close, so I replaced the big cutting board with a pizza pan and put a weight on top.

When Nina got home, she wanted to see him. I pulled out the bread board for some reason, and there was more mousie evidence. Damn! Another? Bother. We opened the oven to get the pail and there was a wee mousie in the back corner of the oven! I caught him under a glass and pulled the pail out to show Nina the first one ... who was no longer in the pail. Buh. The pizza pan left a tiny hole at the bucket's spout and the little blighter got out. So we'd re-trapped the same bloody mousie. We decided to take him to the ravine and let him go. In a fit of not-so-cleverness, we decided to transfer him into a big box to transport him. He narrowly escaped just before the lid got all the way closed. Rot and bother!

We chased him around under the shelves and behind stuff on the shelves and nearly trapped him a few times, then lost track of him, only to find him in the box of wine bottles. We got him trapped again with the glass shoved into one of the wine bottle slots, but it wouldn't go all the way down and he got away again. We chased him around a bunch more, but lost him again. Mousie has won this round.

In spite of being invited to supplement their diet, the cats have failed to notice any signs of mouseness.

Catching Up Yet Again ...

The Sarah Girls came and went again, over Thanksgiving. Fortunately, it turned out that the time they had to visit was on a different day than family Thanksgivinging at the lake. I took no pictures. I've gotten out of the habit of it. Again. Time to start doing a few a week for Flickr to rebuild the habit. Also out of the habit of blogging. Tsk!

Nina and I have been sorting and organizing and de-cluttering. Years later, we've gotten the downstairs space usable for her (though at the expense of rendering my studio space down there completely unusable). She'll get a few months' use out of it, then have to give it up to be converted to a bedroom for Cory, but she's tickled pink to have the space organized. We cleared a bookshelf of crap left behind that I hadn't felt like dealing with, and moved the shelf into the closet under the stairs for a pantry. The closet is insulated on all walls except the outside one and Dad is building a door for it. Soon, we'll have a nice little cold room and pantry. I'm excited all out of proportion about it!

I've been mucking with variously aging computers and looking wistfully at new ones.