Farm Fresh Blog

I believe we have already established the fact that I don't "DO" rodents. In short, they freak me out - not the helpless, screaming, refusing to get off a chair kind of freak me out, more like the dancing in place, screaming obscenities while shooting randomly at the disappearing rodent kind of freak out. Fortunately for those in my kitchen, I rarely have a handgun in my grasp when I see one of the little bastards.

I am completely flummoxed. I've lived in country houses for most of my life, and I have never, EVER had this kind of war with mice.  I have 5 freakin' dogs in the house at any given time, sometimes 7 dogs! What mouse in his right mind would come in this house?  Clearly quite a few.

Because I'm such a freakazoid about it, I have now moved my silverware out of the drawer and into a crock on my kitchen counter. I have moved my bread into a hanging basket over the kitchen sink. Now I have discovered the little bastards in the upper cabinet!  The only sugar and flour not touched was that already in cannisters.  Ewwww!!!  Even Other Half was tripped out.  My switch had been tripped a LONG time ago.

My switched has been tripped in such a manner that I have re-designed the kitchen in the new house at the ranch to eliminate the hiding places. I will have free-standing hutches that separate rooms so if those little rascals want to get in them, they have to go through a rather talented rodent control device.

You don't understand creepy until your Border Collie is scratching and barking at your cabinet doors.  Eewwwww!  But alas, she is unable to get to them and they know it. That will be remedied in the future. But for now, we are reduced to setting snap-traps (because I will not let Other Half put out poison or sticky traps). Unfortunately I am a wuss and can not empty them. Not only can I not empty a mouse trap, I don't even want to LOOK at a dead mouse in a trap.

But still, I'm a glutton for punishment. Take, for instance, my rude awakening this morning. Knowing that Other Half set a trap in a high cabinet, I still felt the need to greet the day by checking for results.  This required pulling a step ladder over to the counter, climbing on the ladder, and opening the cabinet.  I'm not quite sure what I expected to find, but I was clearly unprepared to see a mouse and trap dangling in front of my face when I opened the cabinet.

     "EEEEWWWWW!"  

 Apparently the entire combo-package had bounced across the cabinet and landed sideways against the cabinet door. I opened the door and a dead mouse was 8 inches from my nose. I almost fell off my ladder.

That is not a trip to the Emergency Room and the Animal Emergency Clinic that I want to explain.

"Yes, I said I was attacked by a dead mouse and fell off a ladder and landed on my Border Collie."

I know what would solve the problem, but I'm not there yet.

A girl has got to know her limitations.

In the mean time, I'm busy designing rodent-proof kitchens for the new house . . . and waiting for Other Half to wake up and remove the mouse from the kitchen. (HEY! Don't judge me . . . )