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.