Having fed the little darlings last night, I gazed out the window while getting my own supper and asked “where are our dear deer?” Often we don’t see them for days on end. But we always look for them.
Grant had his back to the window and I was opposite as we munched somewhat unenthusiatically on our humble meal and suddenly I saw movement outside.
Groundhogs are still around and bunnies, but it was the wrong sort of movement. My eyes are rather wonky these days and it takes a minute for me to focus.
Then I whispered to Grant “there’s a stag right outside the window.” Obviously responding to my call!
Unusual, though, to see a stag so close to the house and it was as if he simply materialized in front of me.
He had come up the steep slope and was grazing in front of the porch. We both froze, not wanting to startle the buck, but they always sense when they are being watched.
Or perhaps it was a noise outside that caused him to disappear, just as suddenly as he had arrived.
An animal communicator wrote that if you wish to see an animal, you have to “call” it, with your thoughts and I must say that in our experience this has happened quite a number of times.
Now, if only I could manage to convey my thoughts to certain dearly loved but wicked, wicked cats…
(Having just discovered the latest illicit pee…)
Why? Why do they do it? Oh, I have an idea why they do it, but why do they always pick a time when I am particularly not in the mood for moping up?
Well yes, that would be always, at the moment.
But I am thinking of something else right now.
Another habit that suddenly developed.
Involving other culprits…Sasha being the ring leader
Surely not sweet Lily?
And Tinks, when she’s not obsessing over my shoes.
These creatures are fast turning me into a hardened woman. I’ve had to come to terms with a feature of cat ownership I’d prefer not to have faced.
.
You will be relieved that I have chosen not to illustrate this grim tale with pictures of the evidence.
Really, I didn’t think you would care to see images of deceased mice. Particularly not dissected ones.
Some of you may have had to deal with this sort of thing in biology class. Fortunately I was spared.
Though it might have prepared me.
This new grisly habit began some 2-3 weeks ago.
Lily and Sasha had, for some time been monitoring mice movement in the basement. I hoped it would remain there although a couple of times one of the victims was brought upstairs for me to inspect.
One actually survived the experience and was placed outside. The other, not so fortunate. Sasha had to be persuaded to release her toy and it was laid to rest out in the weeds where it could feed some other creature.
“NOT GUILTY!” Blackie was a stray but I have the impression she would run away from a mouse.
She runs away from everything.
So anyway, we have mice in the basement. No big surprise, out in the country, though I do wish they would not try to nest in the car.
Just when Willow joined the mouse brigade, I’m not sure. Often she disappears at night but usually she is curled up in a box or on a chair. Then I realized that sometimes when she heard me walking about, she would shoot up the basement stairs and Grant told me she had been “watching” mice.
She must have got in extra practice while I was away for three nights.
A couple of days after my return, just as we were settling for the night, there came a repeated banging in the living room. I thought it was Grant and vice versa.
Then he popped up muttering gruffly:
“What’s going on?”
Having had various problems with appliances, we are always a little anxious when we hear unaccounted banging and clanging. We narrowed it down to the fireplace, wondering what could have happened now.
The Child had brought a mouse upstairs and dropped it, so she was now trying to extract it from under the baseboard radiator, assisted by Sasha.
In due course Willow caught the poor thing, so the banging ceased and Grant announced that he was going back to bed.
Leaving me with Willow and her mouse, not yet dead.
My inclination is to rescue but if you rescue an animal that is mortally wounded, then you have to administer the coup de grace. This I was not prepared to do, nor would I put a mouse outside in mortal condition.
Reluctantly, I went to bed, trying not to hear “noises off.” these finally ceased and I cautiously tiptoed into the living room where I found the corpse, abandoned.
(It’s no fun when they don’t wiggle and run away!)
Scooping it up, I dispatched it into the night.
Little did I know this was just the beginning…
Next night my dearly beloved child went down to collect her toy and brought it up to torment in my bedroom.
Having already decided I would not get involved, I had to let the situation play out. And then dispatched one more tiny body into the darkness.
Next night, it got better!
The mouse escaped and was hiding somewhere beside my bookcase. This one appeared to have a fighting chance, so now I had to attempt a rescue, supervised by Willow and Tinks. Big help.
To my surprise I was able to persuade the mouse to run into the waste bin I had grabbed and remembering to unlatch the door, I took it outside and it waddled away mumbling mouse curses. I didn’t blame it.
Sadly, this was my only rescue and I daresay the mouse found it’s way back in to get clobbered the next night.
Sikkim is in love with a toy mouse from Nepal. She’s a Buddhist and does not kill.
After two weeks straight of these nightly murders, I was becoming hardened. What else could I do? Hysteria wasn’t going to help anyone. I will not use mouse traps and we will never have poison in the house.
Toby is bored with it all.
In truth, it’s probably a good thing the cats are skilled mousers. We don’t need mice nibbling on wires and making nests in the walls. I just wish I could put a couple of the cats in the garage.
So I have resigned myself to the whole sordid situation.
For a couple of nights, I had a reprieve and I laughed, unkindly, when Grant told me Sasha had caught her prey and delivered it to him in bed.
That, I could do without.
What a events 😀😀 Yes, you don’t need mouth traps, you have furry friends who will help and will keep you safe 😉
I love the slip of the finger of mouth traps. That, surely, is what your house has aplenty!
Now I’m curious….does it actually read “mouth traps” at your rnd, ‘cos I def see “mouse” here!
The mouth traps appear in Angela’s comment!
Reading about your nights with mice (and “willing to help cats”), it reminded me of something VERY serious that happend on our first night on our hiking trip last week … you will read about it soon 😉 … but I can say, I wish now I had some of your cats with me on this trip!
Oh dear….
😉
Oh, and with all the mice frolicking, I forgot to say … what a BEAUTIFUL picture of the deer!