The circle of life...

We have mice. Very persistent and sneaky mice; they resist the traps and tease us by eating the food we place on said traps without even tripping the dang things! They have been making my cats crazy. My last remaining old timers have been the mousers in the family for years, often working in concert to flush and grab the mouse. They have gotten a bit slow in their old age. They still know when one is about and will wait with unending patience for it to come out and offer itself like a sacrifice (which mice sometimes do!). However these mice have great hiding places in the kitchen; under the stove, behind the fridge and even in the pantry since the cats have not figured out how to open the door yet!

Well, today the mouse was outnumbered. There is a new cat in town and his name is Sherman! He's 4 months old and already a great mouser. He's still a bit green but he's catching on quick and absolutely loves the game! Today Boris alerted me to the presence of a mouse, now let it be noted that mice in my house freak me out completely, I opened the pantry door as Boris indicated and I saw it; a tiny, really cute little brown mouse. I opened the door and ran to get up on top of the couch (I know crazy wimp). There was a big commotion which resulted in the mouse getting under the fridge. Boris and Wilmah (the old timers) took up residency in front of the refrigerator daring it to peek its' head out. Some time passed in which I came off the back of the couch and went about my business. Caitie then came up to tell me that the mouse was under the paper shredder. The paper shredder is in the living room under our computer desk which at that moment was occupied by my husband, he had no clue that Boris, and now Sherman, had chased the mouse underneath it! However he was working so I had to move the shredder, dreading the inevitable scurrying mouse. But it was no longer there. It must have gone downstairs I said and again went back to my business. Then Caitie came running up to tell me Sherman was chasing the mouse downstairs; she ran back down and almost immediately came back up to tell me he had caught it! So I went down and sure enough my sweet, little kitten had a mouse firmly in his grip. I wasn't sure if it was dead or not so I didn't really want him to drop it but he did and thankfully the mouse did not move...at first. Sherman was batting at it and I could tell the mouse was coming around and may try to escape any moment. I made Caitie run and get me some paper towels (Steve was still on a conference call for work so no help there). I managed to cover the mouse with the towels which sent Sherman into a tizzy. But I was too freaked out to actually pick it up! So I let Sherman get it again and this time picked Sherman up and made him drop it into the towel so I could just wrap it up. I brought it outside and placed it on the grass and saw it was breathing and it moved a little, well I didn't want it to try to get back into the house so I picked it up and as luck would have it I saw the semi feral stray we feed sitting across the street, so I brought him an offering! He didn't want it though so I just left the half dead mouse on the cement and went back in. When I checked on it a little bit later I saw that it had moved and was on it's way across the street back towards our house. At that very moment a bird swooped down and picked it up and took it to the top of the lamppost. I laughed, hard. That mouse won't be back again...now if we could just get rid of the others, although I'd prefer it to be a bit easier next time!