Eeek!

For the first time in our current old house, we found a mouse. I think maybe the brown recluse colony, no, civilization, in the basement had been keeping them out, but now with that in better control, the rodents can compete. We heard a scraping noise and isolated it to the cold air return where this little mouse was trying to scramble up the pipe. We watch in amusement at it would get to a certain vertical angle then slide down again. So I grabbed a towel, lowered it down the pipe and replaced the grate, the thought being that it would get itself out and the kids would find it.

The “kids” being the fur-kids, 2 cats and the dog, Annie. Annie and the older cat, EO (Ebony-Obsidian, guess what color she is) are proven mousers, having racked up multiple tag team take-downs at the previous old house we lived in. Ixxie, aka “Kitten”, however was untested. Since showing up at our house 2 years ago, the skinny, skittish, broken-tailed little thing has grown to be the next vowel in our clan. She has a playful streak longer than what EO will put up with, so she can be found making friends with sticks. Not “so to speak”, but really sticks, and weather stripping, and earrings, even coins. I watched her one morning, pick a penny up in her mouth off the slate bathroom floor, carry it out the door where she dropped it and proceeded to play hockey on the hardwood. That helped to explain the change that was found on the floor everywhere, even in the cold air return.

And it was that cold air return where we found the mouse, and Ixxie was in the next room, making us wonder if she had been playing with her new friend before knocking it into the grate. So fast forward 45 minutes, we are watching TV and suddenly Annie is guarding this little grey thing… oh my, with a tail… on the floor, with Ixxie a couple feet away looking on, blankly as she does at what I suspected she had played with all the way into the living room. The mouse was moving slightly and breathing fast, so Annie gave it a quick little nibble, pick it up and repositioned herself further from the cat, mouse between her front paws. Implored by my wife to get rid of it, I pick up the tiny little thing in a paper towel and after showing it to EO, who had just wondered in the room, tossed it out side.

With winter approaching, the little creatures looking for someplace warm might be better served to find accomidation elsewhere, this old barn is hostile!