Oh, the MICE!!!!
03/30/2008 08:28 a.m.

Well, let's see, how many mice is it now we've escorted off the property using live traps??? Um, I'd say about 6. They were all amicably deported, across the river and onto state park land. I am employing every humane effort I can think of (peppermint oil, two types of sound devices, live traps). I even left the door open today for almost an hour trying to give them an obvious way to get out. The big ones seem to be gone, but the babies they had don't know their way around at all.....*sigh* nasty stuff, but being cruel to them just kills me.

Then there was the 1 dead one, caught somehow, between the stove and cupboard. Don't ask me how that happened, maybe it was just trying to escape as I fired up the oven. *involuntary shivers*

And Nina, our latest rescue dog from the "Home at Last Society", turns out to be quite the patient mouser. She waited stone-still for half an hour last night by the back of the couch - and then, WHAM, she got her first one and quite proudly deposited its lifeless little body next to where I was doing the dishes. Then, 2 more today, for a total of 3 (that I know of) thanks to her.

That's a grand total of 10 that have left the premises dead or alive.

And 2 more that I know of still running around looking for food. EWWWW!

But tonight, the clincher was Nina's most recent kill. She dropped it out of her mouth, but it wasn't quite dead - twitching, the poor little bugger. I cried and cried.

If I had a better sense of humor and wasn't attached so much to another creature's suffering, I would have gladly enjoyed a giggle over the similarity to Monty Python's "Bring Out Your Dead" skit, in which a NEARLY dead person is deposited onto the "dead" cart and proceeds to softly protest, "'scuse me, but I'm not quite dead yet..." and then, "no, really, I'm feeling much better now." Alas.

I am encouraged by the fact that I'm seeing almost NO droppings, now, in the usual places, and none in unfamiliar places. So.....I know they are going. I sure don't want to kill 'em. Miah suggested an acquarium to keep them in until we get a couple and then take them over the river and let them loose together. I argued that I didn't think mice hung out as neighbors much and that I didn't think it'd matter much to them if they had "friends" to escape with, but if he wanted to set it up, I'd be agreeable to it.

Enough for one day.

I am currently Bummed
I am listening to my brain shut down