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Wednesday 16 November 2011

Oh!.....Buttons!!!


This picture is the "Um....I've just dropped my toy and it ran behind the dresser" face of my cat Button. Sigh..... It's that time of year when the field mice are moving out of the fields and into the barns, byres, and hen houses. They also, of course, head towards homes. Generally I don't have a problem with them IN the house unless Princess Button brings them in.....!  They do of course get in through tiny gaps in the stone walls (if you can fit a pencil through it a mouse can get through). But after a traumatic year when I first moved into the house when it was newly renovated, I think I can safely say I have blocked up every tiny hole within the house so they can't access any of the rooms. Sadly I have to put poison down under the floorboards to try and control the population I can't get to. I hate doing it, but then I think of all the wires that run under the boards that I don't want mice sized teeth on!

I accept I have a cat and she will eat mice. Fine - I just wish she wouldn't bring them in ALIVE! Or givet to me as a present.  "Look what I brought you - and when I do this - it runs!"  However I've never been afraid of mice - one used to share a stable with my old pony and would sit under his hay net nibbling whatever dropped down. Sweet...and at least it meant he didn't have rats! (Rats and mice won't live together so if you have one you won't have the other. No rats on Graemsay so....). Anyway I digress, I just don't like them IN my house. But I have become quite adept with an old cereal box and a brush in being able to scoop the poor things up when they stop running. I then have to shut Her Highness indoors while I release them and give them at least 15 minutes head start before I release HER!

Anyway - back to the matter in hand.... she let this one go and it went behind the dresser.  I got out the humane mouse traps, baited with peanut butter and put them either side of the dresser.  I then sat down at the kitchen table to work.  Sadly I missed the photo opportunity of the century - the mouse came out the opposite end to Button and jumped OVER the mouse trap! But when I moved for my camera it shot back behind the dresser again....sigh.... anyway I did get *this* picture. Button at one end, while the mouse had just hopped back over the mouse trap on the left and back behind the dresser....



Eventually Button got bored but wasn't going to give up entirely so sat - er - laid on sentry duty. I found this reassuring as I didn't really want a wee mouse running up my leg while I worked away on my laptop!



Eventually though it popped out and right into the humane mouse trap - as you can see it beat Button to it!



I then released it out in the garden while Button was still convinced it was behind the dresser!  Just in case there were more there - who knows how many she might have brought in to play with! I replace the humane mouse traps - but nothing else was caught. Phew...!  It could be a long winter though.....


5 comments:

  1. My last cat is a dreadful mouser. All she wanted to do was play with them. And my word, but she had patience! My previous cat would at least get a snack for herself after terrorizing the poor things for hours. I am not sure which was worse the cries of the mice or the disembodied heads and tails.

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  2. So adorable! My parent's cats brought in a mouse - but we only found out about it when I woke up and saw it on the floor of my (upstairs) bedroom. My parents thought I was dreaming... quite a madcap dash to chase it downstairs and outside, with two cats trying to pounce on it, but we managed.

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  3. swoPoor Buttons is only trying to be generous, Sian. :-)When we had cats they very rarely brought in mice. they didn't need to as the mice could get in without any help. What I really hated was when they brought in frogs from the little fishpond in the garden. Mouse-traps don't work for frogs.....

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  4. A mouse in he house was a continual problem at our last house, always field mice and as our house was on the edge of the fields I always felt they had some right of tenure.
    They were humanely trapped put outside where I am absolutely sure they just came in again. We had no cat!

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  5. VioletSky - Button does normally despatch them. And they really are just snack-food to her! But there are times when she is a typical cat and playws with them. Horrible!

    Schietree - I can just imagine the scene - hilarious!

    Perpetua - Sigh...Yes I know she is being generous...I just wish her generosity ran to a cup of tea in bed, rather than a live mouse. Now frogs.....oooh that IS a challenge!

    CP - yes when you live in the country you kind of accept the wildlife living in the house too :-)

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