Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 40 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Weird Christmas Traditions, Down Here on the Farm
Last week, there was a mouse in the house.
I was beginning to fear that might be the case, given the cats’ sudden interest in whatever they thought was going on behind the closet under the stairs (the back of said closet is one of those concertina-type folding vinyl doors which, when slid open, lets you into the little space where the water from the well comes into the house, where the pressure storage tank is, and where the hot water heater is. It’s pretty clean, dry, and tidy, so not super-creepy, as some such places are.)
There was a mouse in the house early this past summer, but I think that was my fault, as I’d left the outer door into the sunroom open so that pSir (that would be Psymon, the preternaturally clever cat) would let himself in. He loves to go outside, and to pSay that the machinations he indulges in, in order to outwit me and pSneak outside are not highly effective, would be a pFib.
When Psymon went back in the sunroom that evening, I closed the outer door to the sunroom and opened the door between the sunroom and the bedroom. I think the mouse had pSnuck into the sunroom at some point, and that’s how he got in the house. I rounded him up, took him up the road and let him go.
I’m not totally sure how this most recent border-crosser got inside. Ever since our very serious mouse infestation (which began in 2010 or so, when we took all the original siding off the house and–unknowingly–opened up several routes in), I’ve re-sided the house, paying particular attention to potential points of entry, the back porch has been replaced, the entire downstairs has been remodeled, and I thought the place was pretty rodent-proof.
So I don’t really know what happened. I got under the stairs, had a good look around, and discovered a hole, about 5/8″ across which–I think–could potentially connect (with a bit of imagination) to the underfloor area that is a crawlspace and not a slab, so perhaps that’s it. (He was a tiny mouse). So I filled that up with foam.
He was a cutie pie. The cats woke me up at about 2AM, doing that “we’re on patrol” thing that cats do. When I entered the bathroom adjoining the bedroom, I heard “week, week,” coming from behind the door. Sure enough, there he was.
Twenty fruitless minutes of chasing him round the bathroom and the bedroom ensued, after which I went upstairs and made a cup of tea, leaving the cats to it. When I went back downstairs, the mouse was sitting in the middle of the bedroom floor, and Psymon and Poot were staring interestedly at him.
This time, I got an empty margarine tub on top of him, slid a piece of cardboard underneath, drove him some way up the road, spoke firmly to him, and threw him out of the car on his little mouse ear. Then I went back to bed.
At the moment, I have three different sorts of traps in the space behind the closet, only one of them lethal. If any mouse is too stupid to enter the humane trap, and he insists on committing suicide, then good riddance. So far, though, no takers in any of them. That’s encouraging, but not dispositive. Perhaps more so is the fact that I opened up the vinyl door this morning (I took the lethal baited trap away first) and the cats are showing no interest in what’s going on in there.
Fingers crossed. And the fervent hope that this won’t be like the Christmas from a bygone year where we sat watching It’s a Wonderful Life as the mice ran back and forth on the living room floor in front of us, while we hoped (to no avail) that at some point they’d stop and serenade us like the chorus in the movie Babe. (The pig, not the baseball player.)
I really don’t want to go down that road again.
Just now, I put the sheep in the barn. There were two tiny mice in one of the hay feeders. I paused to congratulate them on their choice of accommodation.
Then there’s this:
This morning I went out to do the last of my Christmas grocery shopping, and returned to find this large plastic tub on the floor of what I call my “utility room,” AKA the “dogs’ den.” When I left, the tub was on a shelf, and it was almost full of (rather expensive) doggie treats.
The shelf it was on is this one (see the “doggie face sticker,” to see exactly where this tub of dog treats was):
That shelf is not quite six feet off the floor. Somehow, they got to it, got it down, opened the lid (which requires turning it while holding onto the container), and ate all the treats. The only other casualty that made it onto the floor was the scrubby sponge, which had been on the back of the sink next to the little scrubbing brush, which they knocked over.
Too late to capture the escapade on video, but perhaps I need to install a camera somewhere.
I’m pretty sure they had help. Imagining a sort of Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader move, with Odo (150lbs) standing staunchly on the floor, Xuxa (120lbs) standing on top of him, probably with her front paws on the sink back, and Psymon standing on her and doing the dirty deed and actually knocking the tub onto the floor.
Pretty sure pSir was in there pSomewhere. Because (AFAIK) he’s the only one of the three who knows how to remove a pScrew-on lid:
The whole thing is so reminiscent of the years-ago time when my previous generation of Great Pyrenees, Levi and Xena, celebrated Christmas by eating my Quality Street chocolates.
I’d bought a large tub of them. Yes, for Christmas. That’s what Brits do (or did). I’d hidden them from myself on a shelf high up in that same utility room. One day (channeling Ilhan Omar), “some dogs did something.” But they hid the evidence of their misdeed, and I didn’t notice. Until a day or two later when I was out pooper-scooping and wondering why there was so much pretty reflective material in the…umm…matter I was scooping up.
Turns out that Levi and Xena had knocked a two-pound tub of Quality Street chocolates to the floor, had eaten the lot, including the wrappers, had shoved the empty tub behind the washing machine, and had–expressing complete innocence–gone about their lives.
I had a moment’s panic (dogs and chocolate), then did the math as it related to the bulk of the dogs, the amount of actual chocolate in the candies, and the time that had already passed. And all ended well.
I don’t think such a story could be told today. Quality Street has gone woke, and its wrappers, which were–at the time Levi and Xena indulged themselves–gloriously Christmassy, with shiny foil wrapped in colorful and shiny cellophane, are now some sort of dull and ecologically sound, sustainable wax-coated paper (it’s probably even digestible) with no excitement at all. I didn’t even buy them this year. But even if I had, and even if–unbeknownst to me–the dogs had consumed them all, I’m not sure I would have noticed much of the inevitable outcome. Perhaps “The Case of the Disappearing Quality Street Chocolates” would have entered family Christmas legend, as with that of some friends of mine whose family lost–about thirty years ago–a giant Toblerone that the mom had bought for the kids for Christmas. It’s never been found, and its mysterious disappearance has become an annual joke.
Hmmm……
Merry Christmas, all!
Odo and Xuxa
Levi and Xena
Himself
This sounds like Psir Psymon’s Christmas gift to Odo and Xuxa.
Totally!
Merry Christmas, She.
Thanks, Sir Percy. Right back at’cha!
The lovely Mrs. Nohaaj asked me a few minutes ago: Why are you grinning? Because I just read She’s pstory of pilfering pets, and it’s really funny. And it includes shiny poop! We had shiny poop!
Merry Christmas She!
Merry Christmas all!
I still get a kick out of watching Psymon opening that container.
To think he almost came to visit shay D III. Probably would have taught my three some naughty tricks on how to hack into the various goodie bins that Mrs III keep to gain their affections.
Merry Christmas She
My god, woman, I had no idea you were living with wild, ravenous animals. It’s a wonder that you’re still alive!!
Merry Christmas, dear She.
Do not underestimate the tenacity of them Country mice vs the soft urban or suburban mice. Harder to scratch living in the wild vs the bounty of the trash cans of the citified.
And a happy and blessed Hanukkah to you, Susan. (Although you’ve no room to talk. Remember that thing, several feet long, that looked like a largish log, which suddenly woke up and slithered into the lake, right outside your kitchen window? In comparison with that, the tiny mice don’t seem so bad….)
Odo and Xuxa are quite put out today, because they usually get a treat when they come inside. Since they ate all the treats, they’re not getting any today. (I do have some doggy jerky I got from the local butcher for them as a Christmas present for tomorrow, but they’ll have to wait.
Okay, okay. Point taken. Sheesh.
That’ll teach ’em. Or not.
Just wonderful. Thank you!
I thought they were Cadbury’s Roses. Mrs Mark bought a box of those yesterday.
In the photo? Those are the old Quality Street wrappers. There are two giveaways for the larger sizes of the product which come in a tin or a tub: One is the shape of the tin/tub, and the other is the presence of “The Purple One” (hazelnut in caramel).
The Cadbury Roses tub is round. They also used to be prettily wrapped, but last time I bought them (last year), each chocolate was in its own little rectangular bag (good for trick or treating, I guess, but not so picturesque for Christmas, unless it’s for putting a few in a stocking). I don’t know if they’re all like that these days, but I was a bit disappointed in them, too. (I feel a bit proprietary about Cadbury’s, because the cows at the bottom of the garden in my English family home used to send their milk off to Cadbury in Birmingham, only about 25 miles away. Well, technically, it was the farmer, not the cows, who’d send the milk….).
Feeling a bit “Bah Humbuggy” about all this, as I’ve also had increasing difficulty finding Christmas crackers that actually go “POP” when you snap them. Apparently, the infinitesimal flake of whatever it is that makes the joyous noise is bad for the environment, so now the largest cracker manufacturer and caterer in the in the UK advises you that you can buy their crackers and enjoy the “audible crack of cardboard” as the strip is pulled in half, instead.
And they say that as though it’s a good thing…..
Now I can see how different Roses and Quality Street are! My bad. I’m a chocolate-lover myself, but generally only 70% Cocoa and over. I do like a Quality Street whipped hazelnut though.
Speaking of Birmingham (UK) I booked flights there recently, for a sporting event, only to discover that I was out by a week in my dates, so no Spaghetti Junction for me (or Mrs M) in January.
Silver fulminate is damaging the environment? Bosh!
That was a really fun post. Thanks!
Happy Christmas to Ricochet’s all-American proper British Lady & her magical maniacal menagerie
So far, still no worrying sightings. Bit worrisome in that there are two electrical circuits that keep flipping off. One is the hot water heater. Other is the second kitchen appliance circuit.
Once I reset them, they hold for a day or two, so it’s not an obvious short.
However…
They are adjacent to each other in the subpanel, which is weird. Makes me wonder if I should remove the cover to the subpanel in order to discover if a fried mouse is–intermittently–shorting one or both out, although I cannot imagine how such a thing would have gotten inside it. Still, you never know.
The other (good) thing is that both of the wires are followable and easily tracked. I can’t seen a thing, on either of the wires (and I assure you I have plenty of experience in the matter) that indicates “chewed through,” or otherwise destroyed, but: Rule 39.
Currently flipping the circuits back on as needed, due to friends and family visiting for the next few days and the resultant inconvenience that would come with major investigation.
Will update you in the New Year, once I get my bearings.