Spice of Life

Well Hello There!
It has been a LONG time since I was able to sit down and enjoy some blogging.  I started a new job in August and time is not something I have in excess.  That new development has not changed the battle on the home front and it is time to share our recent activities.  You will, of course, have to forgive me if my grammar skills continue to be problematic.  That also has not changed.

Once again the weather has turned chilly and the rains are on and off.  Well if I am being honest the rains are mostly off since we usually get single digit inches of rain each year but for us, its been wet.  When this cooling trend happens, animals of all sizes seek out warm places to hunker down.  Our summers are very warm (many days over 100 degrees F) so rodent activity largely happens outdoors.  Now is the time of the hunkering and a warm, well stocked house is very desirable.

Before I go into specifics about our recent victories, I must preface with the fact that the mice that have entered our home this year seem to be of a lower cognitive ability.  Now I realize the cognitive abilities of mice can be debated but I have been impressed with what these small furry creatures are able to accomplish.  As an example of this lower cognition trend, lets get into the details of our first kill of the season.

Spice of Life
Several weeks ago a lady at work was pulling out the final peppers and tomatoes out of her garden.  Due to a warm early fall, we had tomatoes all the way into late November.   This lady asked if I liked jalapenos and, as most self respecting native Californians would, I said I loved them. (Side note: if you don't understand Spanish pronunciation, the j is pronounced like an h, the e is pronounced like a long a sound, and n is pronounced like an ny sound or rather hall-uh-pay-nyo).  The next day she brought me a small basket of tomatoes and three jalapenos.

Over the weekend, I used one of the jalapenos and the tomatoes to make salsa.  My husband, also a native Californian, ate the other jalapeno raw.  The third jalapeno was left sitting out in the counter.  The next morning, I was making breakfast and noticed something.  The end of the jalapeno was gone.  It look as though my husband had taken a bite out of it.  I asked him and he told be that he hadn't eaten the jalapeno.  I then noticed some lovely black droppings on the counter and my suspicions were confirmed.  We had a mouse and the mouse was clearly a native Californian. 

View One of the Jalapeno - if you look closely you can see the tiny bite marks

View Two of the Jalapeno - seeds and all for a spicy mouse!

 Needless to say the traps were set that night.  In the morning, the trap was still set but the peanut butter we had put on it was gone - a very lucky mouse indeed.  The trap sat  that way (un-baited) for two days.  On the third day, I walked out to the kitchen to make breakfast and came face to face with my native Californian mouse.  Well, I should say my native DEAD Californian mouse. The stupid mouse had been killed by an un-baited mouse trap.  I call it genetic cleansing.  This is the first round of my anecdotal evidence that these mice may be lucky but they are not the caliber we faced last year.  More to come...

Death toll had risen to 10

Fascinating Survival

I began writing this blog months ago with the focus being on eradicating those pesky mice from our country home.  We have been very successful in this process.  In the last six weeks, we have caught two more mice via traps .  One was in our pantry (no surprise, that seems to be their hub) and one sad mouse lost its battle with a bait-less trap in the back corner of our counter.  Yes, we did disinfect immediately upon find that poor guy.  The trap had been set several days before and the bait had been stolen.  This mouse was obviously not the one who had succeeded in outsmarting the trap since he/she was caught without any bait at all. 

As I have been living in this house for seven months now, my interests in the goings on of the animal population has evolved into a focus on the ability of these creatures we are living with to survive and persevere.  

It is with this interest that I want to introduce you to a simply amazing creature.  This creature is an arachnid (or spider for you less vocabulary enriched folk).    Look carefully and you will be visually introduced to the Wolf Spider:

Wolf Spider - can you find him?

These spiders that I have seen measure in length about 2" across from head to end.  They are similar in size to a small tarantula (we also have these but they are not currently "in season" - more on them in the fall). What fascinates me about these particular spiders is how they have evolved to catch prey.  From what I have observed, they appear to eat large insects by building a very unique form of web.  Wolf Spiders build their webs on the ground where unsuspecting creature will crawl onto the outer edges of the web.

Top View of a Wolf Spider web

In the center of the web you can see a hole.  Wolf Spiderwebs are actually funnels that lead to holes in the ground.  They look much like the funnel you would use to put oil in your car (or in my case one your husband uses to put oil in the car).  Here is a side view of one of their funnels:

Wolf Spider funnel web

The owner of this web will sit inside the hole at the bottom of the web.  When the web is shaken by prey crawling or landing on the web, the Wolf Spider will leap - yes I said leap- out of the hole toward the disturbance.  I have been able to observe this by taking a stick and lightly shaking the web.  Honestly, it is quite startling how fast these spiders are able to come out of those holes.  You may not be a fan of spiders but how may insects do you think these spiders can eat?  Think about how overrun with other insects we all would be without these spiders.

Now, the spider in the picture above was found by my mother in a very sorry state.  We have another creature living with us out here in the country who is a predator to the Wolf Spider and the Tarantula.  Please have a look at the Tarantula Hawk:

Tarantula Hawk - photo found on

4630048757_0a9c314725_z.jpg flickr.com

These Tarantula Hawks are also about 2" from head to end and are a member of the wasp family.  I can say without any hesitation that these wasps are one of the scariest looking things I have ever seen.  Their method of survival is to find an unsuspecting large arachnid and inject them with some sort of substance that renders them paralyzed.  The Hawk then carries/drags the spider to a safe place and lays its eggs inside.  When the eggs hatch, the babies eat the spider inside out. Lovely.  My family and I had the opportunity to watch one of these carry a large tarantula up the wall of a house, across the face of the house for a distance of about 20 feet (turning a corner of the house) and down into some bushes. 

The Wolf Spider my mother found had been paralyzed and was being dragged across the ground by one of these Tarantula Hawks.  When we approached to have a look at it, the Tarantula Hawk flew away. 

The sophistication of these creatures' methods of survival demands our respect despite the fact that it causes us to have that feeling of fear or unease. People are very removed from having to live moment to moment focused on our own survival.  We need to acquaint ourselves with the reality of how most of the world's inhabitants live day to day.  They are focused on one goal - survival.  I find it fascinating.

New Neighbors

Out here in the country we are always happy to welcome new neighbors.  We are especially thankful for those neighbors that help in the reduction of our mass rodent population.  I wrote previously about the rattle snakes and the gopher snakes that are helping keep down the mice.  They are not the only friends joining our fight.  This week we had a new family move in down on our road.  The road up to our property is a dirt lane that winds through the oak trees.  At night it looks something like the Blair Witch Project but during the day it is quite pretty.  Along the east side, there is a small creek bed that only has running water for about three weeks a year.  Over time, this creek has caused many wash outs in the hillside which make great homes for rabbits and squirrels.  We even have witnessed a badger a time or two living near this creek bed.  The west side slops up the oak studded hills and over the years, we have seen many deer, some bobcats, mountain lions, wild pigs, and lots of birds.  We also occasionally see these guys.

Sorry for the poor quality, I was using my PAS.

This little guy is, I am pretty sure, a San Joaquin Kit Fox.

On Friday, I got a call from my mother asking if I had seen the fox that was hanging out on our road.  I had not.  She called back sometime later to let me know that the fox had moved into a den just off the road, he wasn't just hunting in the area.  We love these little guys and I was really looking forward to seeing him. Last night, I needed to run into town and that is when I got my first glimpse of our new friend.  That was when I snapped the picture above.  He was happily sitting in front of his den.  Well, as I was driving home, I got a very pleasant surprise.

Again, using my little PAS so the quality isn't very good.  I cropped the photo so they could be seen but that made it grainy.

There wasn't just one fox, but a pack of at least three.  Here they are sitting outside of their den having a snack.  It is hard to see but the fox on the far right has a small rodent in his mouth.  I love a neighborhood that shares my priorities.  I hope they are here to stay for awhile!!

Outside Help

Well, I wish I had some mousy news to report but we have been given a large amount of outside help with our small infestation.  The weather has warmed up and most of our reptilian friends who were happily sleeping winter away have emerged from their holes.  As a result, our mice have become nice meals for hungry snakes.  In one week we say no fewer then five rattlesnakes and three gopher snakes. Growing up out in the country, seeing a snake is not as shocking as one might think, they are simply part of our existence.  We all learned at an very early age how to tell the difference between a poisonous snack and a non-poisonous snake.  Now we are teaching our kids.  

If you have never needed this knowledge, let me enlighten you in case you encounter one of our slithering friends.  A rattle snake is a viper, meaning they contain venom.  The key to recognizing them is the letter V.  A rattlesnake's head is in the shape of a V or a diamond.  

Here you can see the V or diamond shaped head (image found on redorbit.com)

Some people think you can tell they are rattlers by how they shake their tails.  There are two problems with this method:

1) Baby rattlesnakes do not have rattles and are highly poisonous AND

2) Gopher snakes also shake their tails as an intimidation tactic (pretending to be the poisonous rattlesnake)

A gopher snake's only real defense is that they look a lot like rattlesnakes and sometimes they act like rattlesnakes.  However, gopher snakes are very useful and non-venomous.  They eat all sorts of rodents and that helps people like me who do not want mice running through my house.  A gopher snake has a more stream-lined head, no V, and should be left to go about their business.

He just looks a lot less scary, doesn't he? (image found on buzzle.com)

One last observation about our snake population, we are seeing LOTS of them and they are BIG.  We have seen two gopher snakes that were easily 3 1/2 feet long.  One stretched across the road beyond the width of my wheel base.  My dad and husband had to deal with a rattlesnake in our barn whose body had a circumference of about 6inches.  The good news is that they are easier to spot but wow, if any of them took you by surprise, it would be a heck of a strike.  But again, no mice - I just love how nature can be used to our advantage. Slither on snakes!!

Genocide

Yes, I must confess to committing genocide.  Now, I know that this blog has been dedicated to fighting mice but I think it needs to be about battling nature in many forms.  Today you are getting the first installment of a subject not centered around mice.  

Yesterday, I was out running all over with my mother and grandmother.  After errands were done, I needed to take my grandmother home to take a nap. My grandmother lives with my parents so that means she lives about one hundred yards away from us.  After dropping Grandma at her house, I went home to finish a few things before I needed to run pick up my kids.  I was sitting at my computer (the computer is located in my bedroom) and noticed a buzzing sound.  I looked around and saw no fewer than 26 large black horse flies attempting to fly out the closed windows.  They were EVERYWHERE!  

Two flies beating their wings - they eventually "beat" their way off the sill and onto the carpet.

 I stared at them for a few minutes and did my best to count how many were there.  26 was my best guess since the little buggers kept flying around.  Well, I may be a coward when it comes to disposing of dead mice but I am no coward when it comes to ending the life an unwelcome insect.  I first thought to run get the fly swatter.  I then took a second to picture myself running around madly swinging the swatter in almost convulsive like maneuvers as I tried to kill each and every fly.   I rethought my plan in an effort to maintain some dignity.  

I  made a decision to join a long line of women assassins. Perhaps you are familiar with the most common method of committing murder used by women?  Well, if not, I won't keep you in suspense.  Women are much more likely to use poison to kill their spouses then any other method.  I had this thought as I ran to the pantry and thought, why not?  I grabbed the bug-poisoning spray and headed back.  Upon returning to my bedroom, I proceeded to literally cover my windows with bug spray.  After I hit them with the poison, the flies started to fall and beat their wings very fast.  I was witnessing their last grasp at survival .  Most of the flies fell into the metal track on the windows  so for the next minute or so, I listened to this intense vibrating sound as the fly's beating wings repeatedly hit the metal.  At last, silence and genocide was complete.

One of the few who died in comfort on the carpet.

2 Days Time

Death Toll Rises to 9


2 Days Time
We have caught another of God's creatures.  As I said earlier, I had heard the scritch scratch of vermin in our attic walls several nights ago.  We decided to put out the traps to see if anything was partaking of our food stores.  Yesterday, nothing.  The traps were left unmolested.  This morning I went into the pantry and one trap was untouched.  However, the other trap was upside down.  All I could see was the legs and tail of a mouse sticking out from under the end of the trap. Apparently it takes two days time for the mice to get wind of the bait set out for them.  This is becoming a pattern for our extermination efforts.  I guess that is good since that probably means less mice are trying to invade our pantry.  


Whenever we catch another mouse I have the strong urge to sing, "Another one bites the dust, Another one bites the dust (I also provide the music in between the two phases)."  I wonder if Freddy Mercury would appreciate his legacy being attached to a dead mouse.  Alas, my teeth are far to straight to pull off that imitation. 


One very nice thing I have noticed recently is we aren't seeing mouse poop.  I think that means we may have cut the overall numbers of mice living in our walls down a bit. Geoffrey loves to point out that I will never achieve a mice-free existence but if I can reduce the number sneaking about in my pantry and kitchen, I will be very happy.  I understand that all creatures have their place in the grand scheme but mice are in no way endangered and are not likely to become so.  I will continue to trap those that venture into our home and then let Geoffrey dispose of them.  Such a nice arrangement.

Back to Battle

Back to Battle

We have had no serious activity for the past week or so.  Nothing had been nibbled or opened, no drops had been sighted.  Then late last night I was up reading (still on Spring Break - insert happy dance here) and heard the very clear sound of animals somewhere in the walls of my bedroom.  Tonight I think we will set the traps again and see if the creature takes the bait.

Perspective

On another note, I was watching TV the other day (Saturday I think) and some station was having a special on infestations.  These were people who had been literally overrun by some form of pest.  Most of the stories were bug or spider related but two were rodent based.  

One family was battling rats but another community was battling a mice plague.  It could only be described as a plague since there were virtually hundreds of thousands of mice that had descended onto farmland in what I believe was Australia.  The showed video footage of the mice running around the fields at night and it looked like the ground itself was moving.  No matter what the people did, there were so many mice that they were breeding faster then they could be killed. The farms grew grain for their cattle and horses as well as for selling.  Because of the extend of the mice pee and poop, all of their bails of hay had to be burned due to fear of disease.  The mice also emptied the farms' grain stores which would have been sold to consumers.  The houses were also overrun so the families feared disease would harm their children.  It was a truly horrific and expensive experience for these farmers.  Eventually, the plague ended because Mother Nature took matters in hand.  The mice had no more food to eat leaving the fields barren.  They resorted to cannibalism and many starved.  Eventually all the mice died and the farmers began re-building their livelihoods.  A years worth of work was gone but finally so were the mice.  

I share this story because it put my situation into perspective.  Geoffrey and I are winning our war against the mice and thank goodness for that.  Lessons learned: Someone always has it worse and don't grow grain.

Sis

No stories today but wanted to give a quick plug.  My sister is writing her own blog now (copycat - just kidding) and you can read all about her at:

http://brieinthebutterdish.wordpress.com/

 Have fun reading!!!

Dirty Little Secret

Death Toll: 8

Dirty Little Secret
Okay, today I need to confess to a dirty little secret.  As I have stated many times, I am not a fan of dealing with dead bodies.  I have a very patient husband who is responsible for creature funerals and I am very happy this is the case. Because of this, I found myself in a very shameful situation this week.  On Monday night, Geoffrey had set the traps again.  In the morning, the peanut butter was gone but they had not been tripped (darn fast mice).  In our rushing daily activities, we sort of forgot the untripped traps.  Tuesday morning comes around and I am home (love Spring Break!) working around the house.  I go into ground zero (aka pantry) and happen to glance down at the floor.  One of the empty traps has managed to kill a mouse.  Well, Geoffrey was already off to work at this point so I did a completely predictable Eileen move.  I closed the door of the pantry and ignored the dead corpse.  All day that dead mouse was in the pantry waiting for its final exit from our house.  Shameful isn't it?  I just couldn't bring myself to reach down and pick up that trap and dead mouse.  Luckily it only had to stay there for the one day.  Geoffrey came home from work and took care of the carcass.  I know there are literally thousands of women who would have had no problem dealing with emptying that trap but I am not one of them.  So here I sit, shamed and knowing it will probably not change any time soon.  But hey, I am still a great salsa dancer - I choose to focus on that.

Points of Entry

Interesting Mouse Fact: A female may have five to 10 litters of usually five or six babies each in one year (http://www.idph.state.il.us/envhealth/pchousemouse.htm).

Death Toll: 7

We have been successful in another battle against the mice.  We employed the redundancy scheme the following night but to no avail.  The traps were left unmolested.  However, last Tuesday night, Geoffrey once again set out two traps in the same location.  I am starting to call the area ground zero, otherwise known as our pantry.  We have been using the peanut butter and I am convinced that this is a very good bait.  When we woke up on Wednesday morning, both traps were not only tripped, but they had also caught two mice.  One brown mouse and one grey mouse.  

Points of Entry

One article I was reading regarding house mice said you must discover points of entry the mice are using to access your living spaces.  This house is a veritable Swiss cheese of entry points for our furry friends.  I went  down the hallway alone and found no fewer than seven mouse doorways.  These doorways are tiny holes at the base of the wall.  The hallway has never had baseboards and so the sheet rock is easy for the mice to nibble through.  Geoffrey and I researched what could be done to help this situation since installing new baseboards is not in the current family budget.  It was suggested that anywhere you find these small holes, fill them with steel wool.  Mice can not chew through the fibers and so it effectively seals the doorway.  So I now have a hallway that is literally polka dotted with dark grey spots where the wall meets the carpet.

On the day we moved in three months ago, we had been cleaning our daughters "new" closet and had found one of these holes.  However the hole in her closet was much larger and surrounded by mouse poop and urine.  We cleaned up the excrement and found we had enough scrap baseboards to seal up that hole.  It would have been too big to use the steel wool trick.  So far our blockades appear to be holding since I haven't found balls of steal wool pushed out into the middle of the carpet.

One of the additional joys of living in this old country house is that we can not adhere to a set of consistent decorating norms.  Everything in this house is and always has been a hodgepodge of left over materials.  My parents business is interiors(wall/window/floor coverings) and so the house is a mosaic of materials from 20+ years of jobs.  So seeing baseboards of one style in our daughters room, no baseboards in the hallway, and a different style of baseboards in the kitchen is just par for the course in this house.  Furthermore, since we are living here in an attempt to save money and find a more secure financial footing, spending money to change these varieties just doesn't seem to make sense.  So for now, we will live with grey polka dotted hallways and continue to search for other points of entry.  

Redundancy

Interesting Mouse Fact: Mice are considered to be color blind (http://icwdm.org/handbook/rodents/HouseMice.asp).

Death Toll has risen to 5

Redundancy

Well, once again we have committed a homicide.  Geoffrey had set the traps in our pantry again on Saturday night because of our encounter with the baby mouse.  I also had spotted what looked to be some droppings on the floor so it was back into battle for the Higgins Family.   Geoffrey loaded the traps with peanut butter since that had worked so well the last time we tried it.  He decided to put two traps in the pantry since this has been such a hotspot of activity.  Yesterday morning, he went in to check the traps.  Both traps were empty of peanut butter but had not been sprung.  Many of you have met my husband and know there is nothing he enjoys more then a mechanical problem to be solved.  He immediately launched into a examination of the workings of the traps and discovered that the flaps that hold the bait were stuck.  They could not push down enough to spring the traps.  Geoffrey did some sort of mechanical messing and fixed this problem.  Last night, he set the traps again with peanut butter.  He has decided that the battle strategy he will employ now will be called "Redundancy."  Redundancy means that he will have two traps set very near to each other so that if one fails, the other may be successful.  General Eisenhower, General McArthur, General Patton, did you employ Redundancy?  Or is my husband something of a military genius?  I may have to agree with the latter question because this morning, we achieved victory.  We walked into the pantry and both traps were flipped over and sprung.  One was empty of peanut butter and did not have a little mouse attached.  However, the second trap was full.  Tonight we will once again employ Redundancy and hope for the same if not better results.  The war may not ever end but battle by battle, we are hopeful. Stick with me people, the journey continues.

Interesting Mouse Fact: House mice were probably the reason for domesticating cats (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_mouse).

Death Toll has risen to 4

Oh Baby

We have not had the need to set traps for a while since we haven't been seeing any evidence of mouse activity within our living spaces.  The creepy crawling happening in our attic space is still something that I have not been brave enough to tackle.  However, despite the lack of trap setting, we have increased our death toll.  Thursday morning I was getting ready to go to work (finally mending from a wonderful battle against strep throat - I told you, biological warfare!).  My closet is actually part of the master bathroom in this house.  I was standing in front of the closet door trying to decide what to wear to keep warm in these harsh California winters.  

I have to stop here and mention a quick side story.  This particular closet is large enough to need two sliding doors - a full wall closet.  However, due to an unfortunate incident many years ago, the closet is missing one of its mirrored doors.  My sister, the agile thing that she is, was using the bathroom to try an new somersault style flip she was mastering.  She decided on this location because she wanted to watch her form while performing the stunt.  The problem that exists with many mirrors is clearly stated on most car mirrors - things are closer than they appear.  This was definitely the case when my sister flipped her body head over heels and crashed right into the mirror door.  Sister 1, mirror 0.  I now have one sliding closet door.

Back to the death toll story.  I was looking for a sweater when I noticed something. On the floor, just inside the track on the now single door, was a bit of grey fluff.  What caught my attention was the fact that the fluff was moving very slowly across the carpet.  When I bent down to investigate I realized it was a very tiny and young baby mouse.  I have looked up images of mice at various ages and my best guess is that this one was about two weeks old.  It didn't have its eyes open but it did have all of its fur.  I called in my exterminator (aka Geoffrey) to take a look and of course both of my kids had to offer up their observations (I have always believed my children are born scientists).  The baby was not moving very fast and appeared to be in pretty bad shape.  Geoffrey got a towel and picked up the not-so-healthy baby mouse. Before he could take it too far, I did snap a photo since that baby mouse was one of the cutest things we had ever seen.  Geoffrey took it outside and let it go.  However, when he returned that evening, the baby mouse had not moved.  We don't think it was supposed to be away from its other yet and so Geoffrey moved if further out to the field and let nature take its course.   Below is the picture I snapped before we had to say goodbye to the little mouse. 

 

The question I am left with, of course, is where is the momma mouse and how many mouse siblings remain? Tonight, traps are being set.

Interesting mouse fact: Mice like to eat 15 -20 times each day (http://www.pestworldforkids.org/mice.html).

Death Toll Remains at 3

Food Storage Woes

So, we have had a nice lull in the mice activities in recent days.  For the most part, I am able to place food in our pantry with minimal concern over it being shared by our furry friends.  It seems to be the sugar or pasta that they enjoy most.  This adventure into the world of pest control has caused me to reexamine the way I approach food storage.  Over the years I have owned multiple sets of canisters.  They seem to be the item that gets passed on to me from a wide variety of family members.  For the most part they have just cluttered up my storage areas.  When I got married, I picked out a set of stainless steel ones that I really liked and have had them tucked away in the corner of the pantry for over seven years.  My problem with canisters is not that I don't want to use them, but rather I put something in them and completely forget it exists.  A good example was a head of garlic I placed in a canister which had one of those tops that sealed up.  It was forgotten for I don't know how many weeks.  The smell that came out of that jar when I opened to see what was inside was not something I would wish for anyone to experience.  Rotten garlic could be used in police raids, seriously.  

Most of my sets of canisters were sent to charity when we decided to move into this house.  I admit now that this was a huge mistake.  Since living here, I have come to realize why people need these decorative jars and am kicking myself for getting rid of so many.  I am down to only the four stainless steal jars and they are just not enough.  I have found I need a canister for all of the following items: pasta, sugar (granulated/powdered/brown), flour, tea bags, hot chocolate packets, nuts, rice and the list goes on.  So, a lesson learned - never throw away a canister because the mice will know.  It is a weakness they will exploit. 

List Company

I said that we have had a lull but the activity has be no means been nonexistent.  If anyone saw the movie I Don't Know How She Does It, you will remember the scene where they discuss "the list" women frequently review when they should be sleeping at 2:30 in the morning.  As a full time working mom, I am by no means immune to "the list."  This list is the time when we women lay in bed and review all of the things we haven't done, are stressed out about, and the many things others are expecting of us.  I am not new to this activity but I have found that now I have company.  Many nights I wake up around 2:30/3:00am and start going over my list.  As I lay there, I start to hear "t,t,t,t,t,t," above my head.  It is the lovely sound of rodent feet scurrying around in my attic.  Now what is interesting about this is we have not seen any mouse droppings or witnessed any food smuggling happening in our kitchen/pantry for some time.  My questions are what is up there and what are they eating?  Now being the brave soul that I am, I have no desire to look up into the crawl space to see what the creature is that scurries throughout the night.  My fear is that I won't like what I discover, especially after the Bonnie/rat incident. This scurrying sounds is of course another item that goes on my "list."

A Thought: if mice are awake mostly at night and women do "the list" at that time, do female mice stress about their lives at 2:00 in the afternoon?  Do we interrupt them with our scurrying down below?  Interesting.

Interesting Mouse Fact: Mice are not able to vomit (http://www.pestworldforkids.org/mice.html)

Death toll remains at 3 for mice...explanation to follow

Well, its been a few weeks since my last post but there is an excellent reason for the lapse in my writing.  The major reason is that I am now 100% certain that our vermin friends are waging chemical and biological warfare on my family.  In the last two weeks two various members of our family (myself included) have had near pneumonia, ear infections, flu symptoms, sinus problems, etc.  All of this happens to coincide with the start of our battle against our beasts.  Coincidence?  Perhaps but perhaps not.  If any of you are familiar with the writings of Douglas Adams you know that mice are assumed to be the most intelligent beings on earth.  I am beginning to agree with Mr. Adams' assertions. 

The Relatives

As I stated above, I feel the need to explain our death toll.  We have personally killed three mice. There has been one additional casualty I feel I must mention since I have felt for a while that we are battling more than just mice in our house.  My mother has a dog named Bonnie who roams freely around the property.  Bonnie is not the best at catching animals, she usually leaves that task to her partner/fellow dog Buck.  Bonnie is a bit loud and her run can only be described as more of a lumbering action.  Buck on the other hand is extremely agile and fast.  He also understands the value of stealth.  When Buck and Bonnie find a squirrel or other furry creature, they will dig at whatever hole the animal runs into with great enthusiasm and patience.  The problem Buck is constantly faced with is Bonnie's inability to shut up.  Buck digs and listens while Bonnie digs and barks - loudly.  Common sense tells us that if one is barking loudly while in pursuit of a very small subterranean creature, loud sounds will not help that animal to want to resurface.  Buck gets this, Bonnie does not.  So occasionally Buck is able to hunt solo and is usually very successful.  When he returns with his finds, Bonnie usually steals the dead creature and bites him if he tries to retrieve it.  This episode I am about to relay more than likely followed this pattern.  

I drove home from work on Friday and parked in my usual spot under one of our many trees.  As I was standing outside (weather in the 80's by the way) talking to my Dad I noticed Bonnie.  She was frantically trying to dig something out from under my car.  (As a side note, the car I drive many days is an 80's Porche which sits very low to the ground and is a piece of junk in my opinion - yet another blog I could write on my husbands' and my inability to agree on cars. Bright side is it gets great mileage.)  Back to the story.  Bonnie is laying down, trying to squeeze under the car and I knew she wanted something.  I leaned down and there under the car was a very large dead rat.  The tail alone looked to be 10" long.  Bonnie finally freed her treasure out from under the car and proceeded to carry it around all weekend. 

When I saw what the dogs had caught and how big the rat was, my worry that there is more hiding in the recesses of our house greatly increased.  My dad explained that the oat hay he is feeding the cows can really attract rats.  The cows get fed within yards of our house so it looks like we are now on watch for larger droppings that just the mouse kind.  Oh joy. 

Interesting Mouse Fact: Mice can jump up to 12 inches from the floor onto a flat surface (http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7483.html)

Death toll: 3

We had a clear kill yesterday by trying a suggestion of using peanut butter instead of cheese.  Wham!  Another beastie departs this world.  All three mice we have  caught by trap have been in the pantry.  This seems to be a hub for mice activity.  We set the same trap again with peanut butter but this morning, no mouse. 

When I went to grab Cheerios out of the pantry for breakfast this morning, my dog Buddy ran into the pantry.  He found the trap, snapped it, then proceeded to eat the peanut butter.  I am beginning to think maybe when the cheese was stolen earlier this week, it may have been a 60 pound Australian Shepherd instead of a 4 oz field mouse who braved the trap and escaped unscathed.  I wonder how long Buddy's luck will hold before his tongue or nose meets with a different fate.  Note to self, make sure the pantry door is close tight.

Mouse Salad
Although we have a death toll of 3, there is one more mouse that did enter our battle.  One early morning, about three weeks ago, I was sitting eating breakfast at our table.  Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw movement.  I looked to the right and didn't see anything immediately.  Then out of a dark corner under my cabinets, a little mouse ran right in front of me, paused, looked at me, then continues into a hole under the trash compactor.  I had never noticed this hole and on closer inspection, I saw that the little invaders had nibbled quite an opening in the rubber flap on the bottom of the broken machine.  If you are wondering why we have broken trash compactor, I have no answer other then why waste money on such things?  If it eases your mind, I do still use it as a regular trash can, we just are foregoing the compacting.


Back to the mouse.  This little mouse was interesting to me because he did not seem in any hurry.  In fact, I would venture to say that he sauntered in his mousy fashion along the cabinet.  It is very insulting when the mice become brazen. Now, I have no proof that this is the same mouse but later that night after I had gone to bed, Geoffrey was bagging up the trash for the next day.  He had set the trash bag on the counter near the back wall. All of a sudden, out ran a little mouse.  He encountered a road block where he normally would have had free reign along the counter.  Geoffrey saw his chance to battle this home invasion man to mouse.  He quickly grabbed a salad bowl (a wedding gift I might add so if that guest is reading, I apologize)  and trapped the mouse on the counter.  He then used his free hand to grab a pizza box from the trash.  The salad bowl was then slid on top of the pizza box, little mouse safely inside.  


Needless to say, Geoffrey was feeling very proud of himself.  So proud in fact that he needed to share is accomplishment.  The next moments are vague for me because, as I said, I was already asleep.  What I remember is hearing,"Babe, I caught the mouse!" I sleepily looked up from my pillow and saw Geoffrey standing over me, pizza box/salad bowl/mouse in hand.  "What?" I said. "I caught the mouse!" He said again. His face was boyishly excited.  Unfortunately for him, I simply put my head down and went back to sleep.  


The next morning I couldn't really tell if what I had seen and been told was real or if I had been dreaming.  An understandable confusion when one considers the image Geoffrey presented at my bedside.  So I asked him to verify and yes, all that I thought I had seen had happened. He filled in the remaining details of his capture and the follow up.  Geoffrey had taken the mouse outside into the field and turned him loose.  My one question was, "Did you clean the salad bowl?"  Score one for man to mouse combat.

Interesting mouse fact:

Mice are considered a delicacy in eastern Zambia and northern Malawi (Wikipedia).

Death toll remains at 2

Oven Lovin'

So, yesterday I relayed a story about our oven and the death chamber it became for one unsuspecting mouse.  The story of  ovens doesn't stop with that execution. That exact oven broke several years ago and has been replaced. 

For this story we need to return to early January of this year.  We had been moving in over a few weeks and were starting to settle in.  By the end of January we realized there were some home improvement jobs which would happen much faster if we resorted to bribery.  A friend of ours was called in to assess what could be done with a few projects (hanging/fitting doors - that kind of thing).  We offered to cook dinner in exchange for this labor.  Since we are each a family of four with kids almost the exact same age and very close friends, a little get together sounded very nice.  As anyone out there who has ever moved a family knows,  that first planned event at the new house is a nice way to force yourself to finish organizing and making the place feel more home-like.  So we invited them over for a play date and dinner.  

This dinner turned out to be the first time I had the opportunity to cook in our "new" oven.  It turned on without trouble and everything seemed to work fine.  The menu was not exactly gourmet - it consisted of frozen pizza and salad. The pizza needed to cook at 400 degrees.  As we stood in the kitchen drinking a much needed glass of wine and catching up each others lives, we started to become distracted by a very unpleasant smell.  The stench was growing stronger as the oven heated up.  It was once again coming from the oven.  Now, as I made clear in my last post, I am very familiar with the smell of decaying animals and this wasn't exactly that particular scent.  My friend who I was drinking/talking with happens to be a veterinarian and she did comment that the smell was definitely animal based.  We didn't do much about it that night because our social activities were more fun and entertaining.  Oh, have no fear, my friend does not drink wine while doing her veterinarian duties.

As the days went by we became more and more disgusted by the smell that wafted through the kitchen whenever we used the oven.  Geoffrey and I looked all around and did not see any evidence of a dead animal.  We decided that we needed to dig a little deeper.  Geoffrey pulled the oven out and started dismantling the back panels.  No dead-anything was in there but what we did find was almost worse.  Inside your oven, surrounding the metal box housing the oven, there is a lining of insulation.  What we learned that night is mice LOVE oven insulation.  Covering the entire oven housing was a think coat of mice urine and poop.  The insulation was initially white but after the mice finished with it, it became a lovely shade of yellow.   On the top of the oven housing, just beneath the cook top, were two very clear mouse nests.  By the looks of things, mice lived, loved, and made little mice pups in our oven.

Okay, Geoffrey and I consider ourselves fairly capable do-it-yourselfers (when you're broke most of the time, DIY becomes much more of a necessity).  We thought, "We can fix this!"   I started a little internet research and discovered we were not alone.  Apparently many people have mice infestations in their ovens. According to what I read, you can replace the insulation if you can get a hold of some.  At this time, we have contacted every major hardware store and home DIY chain but no one carries this special type of insulation.  Mice have exclusive tastes.  

To wrap up, we are still living with a mice pee/poop encased oven and avoiding all recipes that require baking.  As a girl who fancies herself a novice foodie and a lover of cooking, this is a very limiting reality.  Luckily my mother has two ovens and lives 30 yards away.  Anyone know of anyone who sells mice-approved oven insulation? Or can one wash insulation?  Hmmm...

Interesting mouse fact: Baby mice are called pups with the average litter size being 10-12 (from Wikipedia).

Current Death Toll: 2
I will be updating the number of mice that perish in our house.  If anyone has a reasonable suggestion of how to dispose/rid the house of mice, I will try it out and report on the results. How good at pest control are all of you??

In that vane, here is how each of the two mice met their demise:
The first was 3 days ago.  This mouse fell victim to my first ever loaded/set mouse trap.  The trap was set out in the pantry where the mice had been into the dog food.  I of course did not dispose of the mouse but rather ran to my husband, Geoffrey, for assistance which he most graciously provided.   


The second was this morning.  This mouse met a very different fate.  Yesterday morning I woke to find the pantry mouse trap sprung with the cheese gone.  No mouse was anywhere to be seen.  This morning, I went to check the same trap and not only was the cheese gone, so was the trap.  Very strange.  I then happened to glance to my left and saw the trap partially wedged under the door leading to the laundry room.  Sticking out from the snapped trap/dangerous end was a mouse tail.  The whole thing was wiggling.  When I discovered this, so did our dog Honey.  She became very interested in this moving mouse trap and quickly decided this warranted close monitoring.  Once again, I did what I do best and when to ask Geoffrey for help (in case you haven't caught on, I am something of a chicken). After about 10 minutes, my husband dragged himself out of bed (the difficulties with getting my husband out of bed could be extensively explored in another blog) and he opened the laundry room door.  Sure enough, quite a large field mouse was attached to the trap by its tail.  When Geoffrey picked up the trap, Honey immediately bit the mouse.  Sadly for the mouse, this did not kill it but rather only added to its misery.  Geoffrey took the mouse outside and opened the trap.  At this point, Honey took a look at the mouse on the ground and ate it.

"Uh oh, something died."
As a woman who grew up in a very rural setting, I have had the opportunity to become very familiar with the strong odor associated with decomposition.  Anyone who lives or has lived among the wildlife has had the wonderful experience of walking into a house and saying, "Uh oh, something died."  One such moment happened approximately 20 years ago when I was still in high school.  

My mother, sister, and I walked into our kitchen one afternoon(the kitchen I now cook in on a daily basis) and were inundated with the wonderful smell of decomp.  If you have never smelled this, count your blessings/lucky stars/any other fortunate symbol because it is unpleasant to say the least - imagine what death might smell like and then add on rotten milk. The three of us tried to narrow down where the offending order was coming from and all of us zeroed in on the oven.  Great.  

My mother, being by far the bravest of us three, decided to start a closer investigation.  She looked in the cook top and inside the oven.  Luckily for our cooking needs, neither of these areas presented a dead body.  Next on the list was the broiler drawer under the oven.  Again, no dead bodies were present but when the drawer was opened, the smell became nauseating.  Definitely getting warmer (no pun intended).  We removed the drawer and looked under the oven.  Thwarted again it seemed but my mother decided to get a flashlight to be certain (good thinking since the smell was making our eyes water).  When my mother shined the flashlight under the oven, we finally discovered the origin of the decomp smell.  Way in the back of the oven, on the far left corner sat an electrical box.  This box was screwed shut on each side but the corners had small openings.  Out of one of these openings we saw a long skinny tail - a mouse had been electrocuted.  


The three of us looked at each other and thought, "What do we do now?"  Once again, my mother came up with the solution.  She went to a drawer and took out a pair of tongs.  Then she got a screw driver and undid one of the screws on the electrical box.  For those safety conscious of you out there, no we didn't think to turn off the electricity but since I am writing about mice and not the loss of a family member, no one but the mouse received an electrical shock.  Either my sister or I (can't remember after all of these years) used the screwdriver to widen the opening in the box, the other held the flashlight, and my mother pried a decomposing mouse out of our oven's electrical box.  Yes, there was fluid.  At this point, I stopped looking and have no more to report other than my mother did dispose of the mouse is some way outside. The decomposition smell had been found and dealt with.  Oh, the tongs?  I have no memory of what became of the tongs.  My sincerest hope is that my mother threw them out with the mouse but I really just don't know...

So it begins...

New Adventure
Today I enter into the mysterious world of blogging.  Not being a blog reader per se, this is a new experience for me.  Before I launch into my tales, I think some disclosure is warranted.  I am by no means an author and will more than likely demonstrate my less than stellar grasp/understanding of English grammar.  I am also a horrific speller so I ask that if you decide to partake of my blog, please do so with the understanding that I am limited in my skills.  Case in point, up until this sentence I have corrected no fewer than 9 misspellings.  Whats really embarrassing is that my sister is a champion speller - where's the justice?  Perhaps a contest for those of you reading to report how many errors I make? Hmm, its a thought.  Onto the real purpose of this new adventure.  

I decided it was time to put into print the trials and tribulations faced by many people around the world.  Daily (or rather nightly) individuals in households around the globe are facing a most disgusting, adorable, and aggravating reality: mice infestation.  I am one of those thousands who stand on the front lines in the war on small furry scurriers.  Let me take you back to the beginning of 2012.  My husband and I were faced with challenging economic times like so many other people. Monthly we battled to pay our bills and still keep our children fed/our cars running. One day we were offered a bit of hope by way of my parents.  

My parents' property contained a house that was sitting empty.  This was a house that had seen my sister and I grow up and leave for the bigger/wider world.  My parents told my husband and I we could live in the house rent free and put our own house up for rent.  This was an offer we could not turn down. This particular house sits in the center of forty acres in the middle of central California wine country.  Very beautiful location with rolling hills, oak tree groves, and of course vineyards.  Horses and cows graze nearby, wildlife can be viewed with ease.  A wonderful spot for those who desire peace and simplicity.  So in we moved with great hopes for a less stressful existence.

Battle one: Move in Day
The first weekend in January 2012 we arrive at the house to start the long tiring process of moving in.  In December we had stopped by the house multiple times to get rid of items in the house and prepare it for our family of four. During one of these visits I had been drinking a Slurpee from Target.  Apparently I forgot the drink because on this move in day, we made a very disgusting discovery.  Inside the tall red cup lay the decaying remains of one small greyish brown mouse. I handled this like any other town loving girl would.  I immediately ran from the room, shouting at my husband, "Babe, we have carnage in the house!"  At this point my husband did what he does so well and that was to completely ignore my cries.  He has this annoying opinion of me that I am somewhat dramatic in my responses to situations, an opinion which I think is (unfortunately) shared by others.  Finally, after many attempts to convey how gross this was, he meandered into the kitchen and removed the cup.  Here's the thing though.  He simply moved the cup from the kitchen counter to a table outside of the door.  I was lucky enough to discover this several days later as my two year old attempted to drink the delicious Slurpee.  Fortunately, I caught this horribleness just in time and no mouse decay was consumed.  And so begins a series of events that will hopefully bring together a small bit of humanity so that we can commiserate over the reality of facing an infestation...oh yes, lots more to come.