When you live in the country surrounded by fields, you have mice. It is what it is. It comes with the territory and is expected. That doesn’t mean you have to like it. Of course, it’s worse in the fall after the crops have been harvested. It’s fall around here for sure on this mid-October day.
Mouse activity verified.
When we lived at the Villa — the small house that’s across the road and a bit west of here — we had a mouse (of course, probably 50 since we saw one at a time) every Thanksgiving to Christmas. Sometimes, we’d see a little shit scurry across the floor. But there were 2 primary reasons we knew we had them:
- I always put my Christmas tree up on Thanksgiving Day. We would find dog food pellets within the stack of Christmas presents as they were opened. The dog food pieces varied in size because some were chewed on more than others.
- Mouse turds.
Throughout a full year at the barndo, I’ve only seen one mouse in the house.
One baby made its way inside last fall. Katie caught it and released it back outside so it could enter again… or maybe go to the Villa. (*crosses fingers*) I’ve yet to see the first mouse turd inside. We’ve seen activity in the garage and have poison bait hidden about, but I sure don’t want damage done to our cars.
So as an extra precaution, we set out a bucket mouse trap.
Next was the wait.
Baited with yummy peanut butter, there wasn’t a single drowning mouse in the bucket after 4 hours. I thought about putting one of our cameras out there, but my animal loving heart simply couldn’t take that. Mice are nasty and destructive — but they are so darned cute too! 🐭
My first and last attempt at checking the bucket was that one time. The bucket check was moved to Perry’s ‘to-do’ list. I’ll let you know what I find out once he does “HIS” job.
Now you know: Arsenic was sold as a beauty product in the late 1800s, women would nibble on wafers or even wash with the poison, hoping to achieve an ideal complexion that was free of “freckles, black-heads, and pimples.”