Sometimes it’s the little things

Posted 11/16/22

SPELLING BEE Time BY BEA WESTERBERG “When the mouse laughs at the cat, there’s a hole nearby”. Nigerian Proverb As the world’s problems and events are whirling around all of us, I have a very …

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Sometimes it’s the little things

Posted

SPELLING BEE Time

BY BEA WESTERBERG

“When the mouse laughs at the cat, there’s a hole nearby”. Nigerian Proverb

As the world’s problems and events are whirling around all of us, I have a very local, in-house issue that is consuming my life. How can this be as the root of the problem is not a giant elephant in the room? I don’t have a giant elephant in the room or as a matter of fact, I don’t even have an elephant of any size bugging me. My elephant only weighs a few ounces and is a …..Mouse!

I am going to list these critters as mouse/ mice as I don’t know how many have been playing serious games with me. I used to use “mouse vitamins” in the past and that kept things at a good level. When Sitka, the dog, almost died from eating a poisoned mouse or two, I got rid of all of the products associated with that kind of mouse control. Another thing I could never bring myself to do was to get the sticky traps and I felt it was totally wrong to let them suffer. I think I have tried everything else from the electronic things that are supposed to keep the mice away to the tin cat box trap. For the record, I do have a 15 pound cat in the house that did mice in the past but must have reached retirement age or else has signed a no harm contract with the little elephants. I was advised that getting the standard traps and baiting them with mouse approve snacks would be the best and cost effective way to handle my problem.

So let the games begin. The first several traps I put out with smooth peanut butter just plain disappeared! I am not sure what that means as I did not smell anything so I am thinking nobody got hurt in the removal. I then came up with the brilliant idea of using a wire to hold the trap in place. That was actually plan B and plan A was to use string but I did think a good mouse would figure that out in a few seconds. Every time I would bait the traps all the bait would be mouse removed with out springing the trap. I tried a lot of peanut butter, a small amount of peanut butter, some peanut butter on the feeding station with some on the wood parts. Smart mouse/mice just licked it all the way off and the trap was still set. Then I used chunky peanut butter in the same ways thinking that may they would need more time to lick it off and spring the trap. No change in results. Maybe trying other snack goodies would make them spend more time removing the item. Those samplings included Nutella, butter, biscoff, popcorn, cracker pieces in butter and chocolate sauce (In case I had high end mice). Every time those mouse/mice would outsmart me and after a week, I was getting a bit ticked off. The thought of getting sticky traps did pass through my head but I still said no to that idea. These mouse/mice were not just night time critters, they had regular daytime hours as well. I was beginning to think that maybe I should be putting out a big bowl of tea or milk for them.

Almost a week and half went past before I finally got A Mouse in the trap! Now everyone knows that one just does not have a mouse, you have LOTS of mice. Where are the others? Are they laughing at me behind the cupboard doors or hiding under the refrigerator? Are they daring each other to go and try their luck on the latest goodie? Being that the winter season is just getting started, I would think more will be looking for homes and those that are here will be inviting guests for Thanksgiving. Good thing I got the super large jar of peanut butter. And no more chocolate sauce. Mice….. you hear that?

Oh my, all that time on mice and Thanksgiving is so close we can almost smell the turkey. I hear that some sizes of turkey are going to be in short supply so be sure to start shopping now. Bookings for eating out on that day are filling up fast and a number of places are fully booked already. It appears that pumpkin is also available for baking needs, so warm up that kitchen and make it smell good!