*Thinking Like A Mouse
Living in rural Canada for over 60 years pretty much guarantees that somewhere, sometime, and at the most unexpected places one will have come across at least 50 mice in one's lifetime--at least 50 even if you don't count what you find in the barns and bins.
Not only will you come across them in one's lifetime but you also come across them in your bathtub, sofa, stove and clothes. As well as your kitchen, living room, bathroom, porch, and bed. They can also be found in your vehicle's air conditioning (@$250 fix), the glove compartment and, of course, the trunk.
Some people are mildly annoyed. Some are angered by the encroachment of these wee little beasties...and some are paralyzingly terrified. I once had to pick my little sister up and carry her out of the house for fear that she would go hysterical when she saw a mouse scamper across the living room floor.
Great and fast moving 'citing scenes' still linger in my mind whenever I think about mice being in the house.
Some personal mouse stories:
1. As mouse traps were bought and set in lower cupboards, I confidently opened the door of the upper cupboards where the silverware had been placed as a precaution. This seemed like a fool proof good idea until one morning a few days later, as I reached up into the tray and a mouse ran across my hand.
2. On a camping trip to Great Britain we were lying in our tents--heads at the door flap, late at night, quietly watching the stars and talking in soft whispers when I suddenly felt something soft and furry 'flit' across my lips.
3. One summer our cat brought our daughter..the designated TOP CAT of the house , 30+ mice to her bed, late at night. Sometimes they were dead and sometimes they were not. One would hear the cat's off key yowling, and then a scream, and then a call for 'DAD", and we would know that it had happened again. The ones that were not quite dead and just laid down on the bed were the most annoying of course, and sometimes it took quite a bit of crashing, cursing, and banging until they were disposed of.
Besides the use of the obligatory and quite frankly only efficient way to control the mouse population in rural Canada , the house cat, the next best thing is having good trigger quick mouse traps.
These traps of the mighty four footed miniature monster must of course be baited with the appropriate matter.
Some say that cheese is best, peanut butter and bacon works pretty well for the non vegetarian mouse group. However, it was found in our house that our mice visitors preferred candied fruit and peel--the type used for festive cookies and cakes.
And so the scene would unfold thusly: first there was the 'spying', then the 'crying', followed by the 'running', the 'banging', and ultimately the finding of the TRAPS. The children were all younger than 6 when I first recall them watching with awe and admiration as their father after unsuccessfully but bravely seeking to destroy the minute intruder using with the broomstick method, bring out the Steel and Wooden apparatus. He would then proceed to search to the back of the fridge to find the containers of candied peel and fruit left over from seasonal baking. The children , after being warned to 'Stand Back", would stare in silence as the trap was set and baited and gingerly placed at just the correct angle, and finally , slowly and carefully walked with the grace of a ballet to the exact spot of 'last sighting', and in hushed silence, smoothly, oh so smoothly, placed down to await its dinner guest.
That bait and trap method has worked quite well for many years even though not one of the children ever would even taste a crumb of Christmas Fruit Cake full of mouse bait.
*So, many times I've said that if you want to catch a mouse, you have to think like a mouse and you have to set your traps in the places the mouse will travel.
Phone call the other day:
Daugter: "Mommy! I thought like a mouse!"
...
Mommy: "What?"
Daugter: "I thought like a mouse! I set the trap where the mouse was going and I caught him!"
Now I ask you.......is it a good thing if you've taught your child to think like a mouse?
...Thanks to a FaceBook Friend for that little story. DW :)
I will end this mousecapade with a recitation an elderly friend performed while attending a prairie country school about 70 years ago.
I saw a mouse go up the wall.
I saw its tail. That's all I saw.
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