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.