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.