I've fallen behind. Projects to be caught up upon, tight deadlines, revisions have all conspired to keep me from keeping this blog up to date.
Nonetheless I've made notes.
There was the Clock Mouse of a few days ago. Now I knew that after the roundups of the last couple of months I still had a couple of mice left, but I wasn't comfortable rounding them up with the weather being so inclement and all. I'd just grin and bear it until it warmed up then finish collecting and transplanting them.
But there was one that seemed to have made his home on the kitchen counter, admittedly a bit of a mess, covered with toasters, blender, tupperware, an antique slate clock I've been meaning to find a place for, ....
And I'd see it dashing across the counter, but somehow it would always hide whenever I got near.
Then there was the chewing sound. As if it was somewhere close, but I couldn't quite place where, and as I scoured the countertop I for the life of me would have sworn the mouse was in the clock. But looking around it it was impossible.
Finally the weather turns and I resolve to clean the last few of them up.
With my daughter we search for it on the countertop, I can hear it chewing, oblivious, then the clock chimes. The clock I haven't wound for years. Taking this as a clue, I go to move the clock and from underneath dashes a mouse. There is a tiny, 1/4 inch groove at the back, invisible unless you happen to be looking right at it, and somehow or another the mouse has slipped under it and made him/herself a home.
Now I clean out the mousetrap and bait it with fresh peanut butter and leave it on the counter. That night I caught 2 mice, within 1/2 an hour of each other. I walk down the street a block or so and let them loose in a vacant lot/field.
The next day I catch yet another - an older, scruffier one, I can hear it tipping the trap back and forth from my room. I wake the children and we take it out and free it.
I begin to think that maybe I'm finally mouse free. For three days, then finally another one peeking out from behind the stove. I've moved the trap, but he still hasn't fallen for it.