Are We Mice or Men and Other Stories from the Island



Mr. Scritchy wasn't this cute.

It's been a banner week this week.  I will start with the tale of Mr. Scritchy, the house mouse.  He first made his presence known one night as we watched TV.  Ron popped up of the sofa once and went in to the bathroom, but came back and sat down.  I thought he'd gotten up to turn on the night light in the hallway or something.  Not much after he popped up again, like a released helium balloon and proclaimed "It was a mouse...the little @#$%^$"  The word started with a "b" and rhymes with mustard.  He chased the little thing in to the guest room, but the little bugger managed to get around the blanket that Ron used to try and block the doorway.  We found his access point in the bathroom closet and put something nice and heavy over it until we could get some stuff to seal it off the next day.  He came by his name the following morning.  As I was putting on my make-up I could hear him in the floor under the closet trying to get out.  "Scritch, scritch, scritch".  Creepy.  Anyhow, we used expanding insulation and tin foil to block off the hole and any others we could find in the closet and Ron did an outdoor perimeter check to find any access points and efficiently sealed those off as well.  (We called the closet incident a tie.)  We think we might have closed off his exterior exit, but read along and see what happens.

We found no further signs of Mr. Scritchy until a week or so later, as we were getting ready to go to bed the little so & so popped out of the office from an open knot hole in the flooring.  Ron scared the little guy so badly that he ran down the ledge of the wall leading to the staircase and slipped off the end and fell a good three feet to the stairs and scurried down and in to the living room.  We deployed a familiar tactic, but used better materials.  We blocked of the entry to the living room with books and pedestals and proceeded to chase Mr. Scritchy around for half an hour.  (You have to understand that he was just a teeny little grey mouse with a little pink nose and desperate desire to live.)  Most of you know me well enough to know that I hate killing things, so we were trying to catch him alive to take a release somewhere far away.  Well he figured out our plan pretty quickly and after rushing me a few time (he sensed I was the weakest link from the get go) he finally managed to squeeze himself down in to one of our forced air vents.  We now refer to this as the Living Room Skirmish.  Score one for the mouse.

Disgusted with ourselves for letting him get the better of us, we left up the barrier baited the "never again" traps (aka guillotines) and spent a restless night of shame (cue Alice Cooper's "No More Mr. Niceguy").  The next morning the traps were empty and there was no sign of Mr. Scritchy.  We tried to logic it out...the vent pipes led down to a place where he could have slipped out and we hoped that had made his way in to the basement where he couldn't do any harm and it was unlikely that he'd get back in to the main part of the house.  We just couldn't be sure.  We were relieved, we don't abide free loaders and he certainly wasn't helping with the rent, but we could wonder and hope that he was really gone.

This morning Mr. Scritchy was a found...a victim of his own cleverness, he'd come back to the living room and been caught in one of the snap traps.  (Thank heavens I didn't see him...I would have felt horribly guilty.)  Rest in peace little fella' or in your next life bring your wallet with you.

We've finished painting the dining room...another battle, but that's what we get for choosing red.  Now all of you know how much I love RED!    Not being able to paint the living room red made me a bit melancholy, so Ron came up with the brilliant idea to paint the dining room instead.  It looks quite phenomenal, if I do say so myself and with the dark place mats (thanks 'Chelle) and white plates dinners will be visually smashing and hopefully equally as tasty.

The final excitement from our week was the delivery of our snow blower.  We bought an attachment for the John Deere, as the driveway is so ridiculously long. (567 feet according to our deed of ownership.)  It seems a bit futile to have put out the money at this point as its 7 degrees and sunny, but I guess being prepared is better than being snowed in for a week.  Pictures to come.