Monday, November 26, 2007

Hilarious! But then again...

During the course of the day we discovered two "baby" mice. They're old enough to walk but not old enough to scurry worth a darn - easily collected and, umm..., relocated.

The hilarious part is the ease with which My-Better-Two-Thirds can be made to jump out of her skin. A simple BOO! will do it. Repeatedly. What a laugh riot, such good fun.

But then again... I do believe that mouse litters involve a bit more than two of the critters. Not to mention mom. Off to buy some traps. Sigh...

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I know what you mean. We had voles in our yard and the cat (the cat of many names, one of which is Skookumchuk) brought one inside. I managed to luckily - though purely accidentally - decapitate said vole with one fortuitously timed slam of the door between the laundry room and the garage. The spouse would have jumped out of her skin at the sight of an intact vole, but the sight of a guillotined one worked just as well.

Anonymous said...

Clarification: Not Jacobin guillotining so much as Ile du Diable guillotining. And with Dreyfuss being pardoned, and all that. But guillotining nonetheless. As to the voles, I say - bring it on.

chuck said...

SQUEAK!

Anonymous said...

As with voles, with mice you need the cochlear sensitivities of an attack submarine sonarman to distinguish real mice sounds from other - or wholly imaginary - noises. There must be some way to rig up microphones throughout the house to a computer and produce a
waterfall display.

chuck said...

Skook, I suggest a cat trained to point.

Speaking of voles and cats, some friends of mine, living up in the mountains one summer, had a tom that died from unknown causes. So they dissected it and found the remains of thirteen voles in its stomach. The diagnosis: gluttony.

Anonymous said...

Training Skookumchuk the Cat to point would solve a multitude of problems. Such as grouse hunting in the Cascades. Plus no need to construct a dog run on the east side of the house. I will let you know how it goes.

Funny though that no shotguns have pointing cats engraved on their sides. But that shouldn't stop me.

ambisinistral said...

Speaking as a city slicker, born and bred, what the heck is a vole?

Anonymous said...

But - if it works - I will commission David McKay Brown to make me a 28 gauge with pointing cats on the sides.

Or not.

Anonymous said...

Ambi:

Of course, it is Wikipedia, so grain (or truckload) of salt and all that but here is all you need to know about voles.

Knucklehead said...

Ambi,

Round my neck of the woods we call what Wikipedia labels a vole a "field mouse". What we (or at least I) call a "vole" is a darker colored little sucker with a POINTIER head/face.

If I were a camera carrier by nature or habit I would be able to show you an excellent picture of what we (or I) call "voles" from a few weeks ago. The mutt sniffed one out of some leaves trailed it for a few feet until it got cranky and turned to make a stand. Quite a sight with this pointy faced, mouse sized critter reared up on hind legs and jabbering at my 70lb. female mutt. Just as amusing was the empty-headed look on the mutt's face.

Back to my mice problems... I've found mice remarkably easy to trap over the years. A little dab of peanut butter in a trap of most any sort and you'll generally have your catch completed over night. Not so this time.

I'm wondering if they didn't somehow just scoot in, or be carried in, when we had the back door wide open for a while day before yesterday. I'll probably find the remainder eventually but this seems an odd case.

Skook,

...you need the cochlear sensitivities of an attack submarine sonarman to distinguish real mice sounds from other - or wholly imaginary - noises.

Actually, I don't. The Better-Two-Thirds can hear them a mile away. She'll wake me up with a swift elbow in the ribs telling me how there's a racoon or some such in the attic. I'll 'splain that it is just a mouse and I'll trap it later, after I've finished sleeping. She'll 'splain how it can't possibly be a mouse making "all that racket!". Unfortunately it is way out of bounds to show her the evidence after I trap it.

Remind me some day to tell the story 'bout the squirrels. Now THOSE critters make a RACKET.

Anonymous said...

Knuck, Ambi -

See, this is what happens when you blithely link to Wikipedia without actually reading the entry. As in Knuck's case, our voles here in the Northwest have pointed snouts too. Different animal than in the article.

Knucklehead said...

Skook,

I always figgered they were called voles 'cause they're little, mouse-like varmints what look like moles. But whadoo I know?

Anonymous said...

Oh, and afterward I was instructed by Mrs. Skookumchuk never to divulge that a vole had been in the house to either of her sisters or to her Mom.

The cat on the other hand was rather proud of the fact.

Knucklehead said...

Skook,

We must maintain the universal lie that mice (or their near kin) have been in our homes. The pretend world of women - a wonderful place.