The Pied Piper of Mescal

I wish I could find him, and I would be sure to pay him .

As Lesley mentioned in one of her posts, we put up a shed to store our clothes, shoes, etc... since our tent blew down. Well, Lesley was in said shed looking for an article of clothing when, in the drawer of her dresser, she found a mouse. I didn't think much of it at first. The dresser had been in the far side our tent and was not used often so I figured Little Mickey had bunked there for the winter and that he would see Lesley's encounter as an eviction notice and find a new place to live. We don't keep any food in the shed so I didn't think there would be much of a reason for him to hang around.

A few days later, when I was getting dressed in the changing shed, Mickey (or it could have been Minnie) ran between my legs, across the floor and behind the shelves on the opposite wall. Since the mouse obviously hadn't gotten the gotten the hint, I decided to try to be Lesley's hero and protect for this rodent. By the way, Lesley hates rodents. She had hamsters (or gerbils, their all the same to me) as a kid, but the give her the heeby-geebies now. One time when we were at a friend's house I had her hold a guinea pig and she was visibly shaking. Don't worry, I learned my lesson.

I ran to the local hardware store after work that day and bought some mouse bait and mouse traps. I like the idea of the bait because the mice would die somewhere else and I wouldn't have to mess with the carcasses. I hid the bait underneath the dresser where Parkin can't reach but it makes me nervous that he might find a way to get at it. I also haven't noticed any bait missing from the box. I like the traps because I would be able to monitor the death toll and I only set them out at night so I don't have to worry about Parkin getting his little fingers caught inside. The downside is that I have to dispose of the corpse in the morning.

The first night I only put out one trap. When I went to check it the next morning, it wasn't where I had left it. Something like the following must have happened:

I did find the trap about three feet away from its original location.

I set two traps last night and found them this morning with a mouse in each. Both nights I used marshmallows as the bait. They work great if you open them up and then mash them on the trigger letting the sticky insides adhere to the trigger.

I ran across this article on homestead.org today. And thought it pretty serendipitous. After reading the article I am considering removing the bait and just using the traps. Although the article dismisses it and I have had a long standing strong dislike for cats, I am thinking about creating a Mouse Czar position in my cabinet and filling that position with Sylvester. I think it will take much more than two traps to tame the mouse population out here, but I would rather have a cat around to eat the mice than to have one or multiple snakes showing up for the mouse buffet.