.oops

Accidentally posted an email to my blog - sorry if you got it - as you
must have seen, it was a hysterical request for a cat.....that's why you
don't write emails in a panic early in the morning.......

....woke up this morning to what I swear was a mouse in the bed. In my
sleepy haze i feel like I pulled back the covers and THERE IT WAS! I
don't know if I'm becoming a little nutty up here on the mountain or if
there really was a mouse. There HAD to have been one! Why else would I
have felt scratching and saw one and let out a blood curdling scream and
found myself in standing in the bathtub because its now the safest place??

Anyways - whether or not I am now a delusional cat lady without a cat, I
am happy to report that I GOT ONE!!!!

After my second consecutive rude awakening I sat down at the kitchen
table and practiced setting traps. After an hour of almost snapping my
fingers off and mutilating a plastic pen, I was finally ready. I lined
up those traps and put one under the kitchen sink - and BAM - less than
a minute later - I got my first mouse.

After several manuevers involving gloves, salad tongs, and plastic bag I
deposited my first mouse in the field to feed the raven couple and told
him I was sorry.

Despite the fact that I was hysterically crying this morning - I now am
feeling very brave and competent and fabulous....

So, in case any of you with a mouse phobia and zero mice killing
experience are planning to move to a cabin for the winter any time soon,
here are some of the things I learned......

1. Mice like to run along walls.
2. Mice reach maturity in 3-4 weeks and then procreate with up to 10+
babies at a time.
3. There is a right way and a wrong way to set a mouse trap.
4. There is a right way and a wrong way to peanut butter the trap.
5. Adding oatmeal to the peanut butter makes the mouse work a little
harder to get the flakes off - springing the trap.
6. You have to put the peanut butter on the very end of the trap - not
the back or middle - so the leverage will work in your favor and the
mouse has to step on it.
7. Mice don't like steel wool - you can stuff it into holes.
8. Rat poison makes mice thirsty - so set it outside so they will
hopefully go away from the house in search of a water source.
9. Not all cats are mouser cats. There are apparently some cats that
are better than others.
10. Sticky mouse traps are a moral dilemma because you have the cute
live mouse all stuck.
11. Most folks around here seemed to have advised me to set live traps
- I will consider it.
12. A bucket trap can be set with or without water inside. The can
must spin freely in the middle.
13. You can use an empty rectangular box or roll of toilet paper to
lure them to the end, tipping it into a trash can etc and live trapping
them.
14. When you have one mouse, you probably have more than one mouse.
15. Search for and plug all mouse access holes.
16. Bleach everything mice have touched.

Thanks for all the advice and wisdom. I'm done making a fool out of
myself on the internet for awhile. But I really DO feel empowered that
I caught one all by myself.... even though it took me 2 days to do
something the rest of the Alaskan population can do in 3 minutes........