Mousey Invader Attacks

All winter we have struggled with a beady eyed creature. We had been invaded by your typical mouse. The funny part is the mouse seems to come and go with the changes in the weather. Eric even went so far as to put out traps and we still had no luck catching the nasty little thing.

In the mean time we have been losing all kinds of food due to the little devil coming in for a snack. To combat the little booger from being tempted from coming in we began putting our food in an unused dog food container. Which really worked wonders to keep our food from becoming a snack and tempting the mouse to come eat.

We went at least a good month without any mouse evidence around then out of the blue this weekend I noticed some evidence in the pantry. I again pulled everything out and cleaned and bleached everything. Last night the cat Leia kept hunting in the pantry like she knew the mouse was in there. The nosy human that I am I just had to see what all the fuss was about. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why she was completely going nuts.

You know the aforementioned dog food container? Well I've been a bad human and I've been leaving it open. In my defense I thought our mouse troubles were over since we hadn't had any reason to believe the thing was still coming into the house. I found out otherwise last night thanks to Leia.

As I was looking in the container I noticed that the mouse had eaten pretty much out of every package. I was showing Eric all the holes chewed in the Marshmallows and Cheetos. The whole time I was wondering in the back of my mind how the mouse got into the container and then back out. Well........

it didn't. The little mouse is still in the container and now I'm having a dilemma.

As nasty and gross as they may be I still find them awfully cute looking. I can't purposefully kill something just because it was an inconvenience for me. I wanted to take it back to the field across the street next to the gas station and let it loose thinking it would still have a chance. Personally if given the choice I'd rather have a chance at life with the possibility of freezing to death than any of the alternatives Eric could come up with. While I"m writing this I'm sure the mouse is gorging itself on it's buffet of Marshmallows, Cheetos, and Luck Charms cereal. I'm even so pathetic that I'm getting ready to go put some water inside the container for it too. The compromise Eric and I came up with was to put it in the trash on Friday and hopefully the little guy survives the ride and lives a nice life at the dump. If something bad happens at least I tried and won't feel nearly as bad about snuffing out it's existence. I just didn't have it in my heart to kill it after we trapped it alive. I know that is irrational thinking on my part but I just can't do it. I can kill a plant and have no remorse over it, but I just can not for the life of me take the life of another being on purpose for no purpose when there are other more reasonable options. Though I'm sure no one will agree with me as all mice are just as bad as roaches.

Holding the catch of the day!

UPDATE: The mouse has been freed. Eric and I took the cute little devil of destruction to the lake and released it. We were sure to put it in the brush and trees to try and protect it from the birds. Hopefully the little thing is able to make a nice home for itself.