EXCITING TIMES, FOR SOME....

THURSDAY.

Charlie is endeavouring to rid the world of mice! Quite often I have to remove dead mice, some half eaten, some not. Fortunately I am not tickle-stomached. However, and I know this sounds daft, I am against having to chase after a live mouse. Not through fear, you understand, just that I can’t move as fast as a mouse. 

Early morning, just after waking up, I was obliged to investigate the ‘thing’ Charlie was playing with. Yes, it was a still-alive mouse. Fortunately my appearance caused Charlie to run and the mouse to freeze. Grabbing a paper tissue I managed to capture the mouse and, followed closely by Charlie, took the mouse into the garden. Of course, I tossed it onto the garden where the miniature animal raced off, chased by Charlie - in my direction. Luckily, I managed to capture the mouse again which made Charlie curious. Thinking cap on... where to throw the mouse out of Charlie’s way. Surreptitious moves on my part fooled Charlie into thinking the mouse was somewhere it wasn’t which gave me time to sweep the mouse out of sight.

Half an hour later I was still watching Charlie trying to find it.

SATURDAY.

Is it any wonder my back is killing me? I woke at around 6 o’clock. Charlie usually wakes me around 6.30. Apart from peeping at the clock I was reluctant to open my eyes. I mean, I don’t have to get up early. There are no commitments that require my attention at an unearthly hour but Charlie doesn’t believe in late rising. I can understand that, the poor animal needs feeding after all said and done.  Normally I wake in a sleepy daze but it felt different this morning. I felt alert but couldn’t think why. Only then did I realise that Charlie was running around. I could hear him slithering on the floor in an obvious hurry. Oh, I prayed, please don’t say he’s caught something.

I guessed right ... there was a A MOUSE in the house, a very much alive and kicking mouse. Usually they’re dead when I find them but not today. I didn’t stop to think, I shot out of bed to join in the chase.

Charlie and I chased the creature, what a sight that must have been with me still in nightie and bare-footed. No wonder the mouse ran and, boy, could that mouse move! He darted about in all rooms, at the back of radiator, successfully avoided my grasping hands, back to the rooms, then back into the hall and under the radiator cover which inconveniently has spaces for the mouse to go in and stay in. I got the walking stick and prodded but of course the mouse shifted to the other end. I tried to lift the cover away from the radiator but it wouldn’t budge - it needs two people to shift it.

I needed time to think about this so I ambled into the bedroom to get slippers and dressing gown but only got as far as picking up the slippers (actually, for slippers read sandals) when I heard another scurrying sound. Sandals in hand I hurried back to the mouse’s hidey-hole and started poking about with the walking stick, an instrument far too long for the job in hand. Looking round for something with which to hit the mouse, if I should ever get near it, I remembered that in the next room - just feet away - was a long handled shoe-horn, made from bone and purchased in a far off land, and perfect for the job in hand. Hurriedly I went to get it. Little did I know that the mouse had jumped into one of the sandals and I was carrying it around. I think it was the scream that made him jump out and head back to his shelter.

That was where he met his end. When he ventured out of the hole I was ready for him. The minute he tried to come out I hit him with the newly acquired weapon. Wham! Actually I don’t know if it stunned him or killed him. Gathering the inert body into a strip from the kitchen paper roll I took him into the garden and threw him into a patch of long grass and weeds – while Charlie was still searching the house!

SUNDAY.

I was sad to find a dead bird, a baby greenfinch. The chore that time was to sweep up the feathers and discard the body. So sad. LIFE IS NEVER DULL IN MY HOUSE. I have since barred Charlie from certain rooms. Of course, first on list is my bedroom! I thought barring him from some areas might save energy - mine!

In the road where I live..

Our dining room table is right in front of the window, with a good view of patio and garden and the various bird feeders. One intriguing sight is the mouse that cuts across at high speed. If I blink I miss him. Sometimes all I get is an impression of something whizzing by. He takes the same route every day. I think he’s one of the three babies that came daily for birdseed last year. No longer a baby, he now ventures further afield.  We thought it quite amusing when several times a neighbour’s cat followed the same trail. Coincidence? Or was he following the scent of mouse? It all happens in our garden!

It all happens in our road as well. The next door neighbour, Doug, an elderly guy of 78, going on 79, has started to tumble. On a few occasions he has fallen in his own home, unable to get himself upright, but at least once he was outside where Joe found him. One night was spent on the floor of his bathroom where another neighbour discovered him. She pops round to sort his washing and do some shopping so she, fortuitously, has a key. Joe and I have been key-holders for many years on a just-in-case basis. The poor man’s memory is not what it was and sometimes he has had to phone us to let him out when he mislaid his own keys. Note that... we had to let him OUT. How sad when the mind gets in such a state, something that can happen to us all. Fortunately, Joe and I still retain our faculties. 

Things have been organised now, the doctor has arranged with Social Services to supply carers – much against the wishes of the man himself. Doug has always lived alone and it goes against the grain to have people in his home telling him what to do or generally keep an eye on him.

        

We are fortunate in the UK that our health service provides for us oldies, although to read the newspapers you would wonder, by the sheer numbers of ageing folk, how on earth the medics cope. But cope they do, and very well, at that. When I think of the speed and efficiency that went into caring for Joe I am truly grateful. It knocked us sideways sometimes with the amount of appointments he had but there was never any room for complaint, thank the Lord. 

Babes in the Garden

The other day I came to within five inches of having a baby robin on my hand. There were two babies but this one was friendlier and stuck around while I sorted out the bits of suet from the seed. The babies were first on the scene when I appeared but only the lively one came closer. He didn't mind me taking his picture but he wouldn't oblige me by sitting in a suitable place. 

I feed the birds in an area under the apple trees so there are plenty of branches they can sit on. Braver than his brother (I have to call them something so I might as well use the masculine gender) he hopped from branch to branch until he was right in front of me. I offered a piece of suet, which he looked at but didn’t move. I put the suet in the palm of my hand and tried gain and he looked more closely, but didn’t move. So he did a bit of taunting, hopping to different branches and coming back, each time a little closer. That’s when I reckoned he was about five inches away. The performance was repeated for a couple of days but now they've gone. Sob! The same thing happened last year, they were there one minute and gone the next. Still I guess they have to find new pastures. Perhaps next year …

Now it's the turn of the mice… yes, two field mouse babies come for seed. They are so tiny I could easily have missed them. I tried to get them on the phone camera but they were too small.They didn't move while I tried to focus, just carried on bravely eating. Pretty soon, like the birds, they will disappear to pastures new because that’s what creatures do. 

Garden visitors

We have rather a large garden with bird feeders at the far end, in the line of sight. However, if we make a move our feathered friends see us and scarper so it's difficult to get good shots of them. In the first picture you can see how far away the feeders are... to get that picture my camera was on full zoom. Of course you can't see what I was trying to capture, but the second photo reveals all. I enlarged the same picture, using the camera's own facility, so that we could see who has been pinching all the birdseed. Because of all the messing about the picture is poor quality but you can make out the perpetrator of the crime.

Allow me to introduce

the Fieldmouse.  Oh for a playful tug on that tail! Still it makes a change from seeing the squirrel. Please note new RECOMMENDATIONS panel at top of side bar

Animated-gifs.org

There's a Mouse in the House

(photograph courtesy of www.naturephoto-ca.com)

Noting that the bird feeder was empty I thought I’d better get out there and give the birds their daily bread rations. The tube, as shown in the picture (minus the chaffinch) was totally devoid of seed. Why? Because the mouse was inside the tube, upside down, scoffing every last grain, and believe me he did have the last grain. And there was I, without camera.

He might have been the cutest field mouse I’ve ever seen but I still told him off, words like get out of there, you stupid mouse. At least, I think that’s what I said. Hearing that I was ever so slightly annoyed, Mr Mouse decided to make a run for it ... up the slithery tube, right to the top, whereupon he jumped to the ground, a drop of more than six feet. And there was I, without camera. Can you credit it?

I know the mouse has been eating seed but he did that whilst sedately sitting on the rim of the feeding hole and he always cleared off when a bird flew in. Mr M must have been pretty desperate to go right inside the tube.

Memo to self. Remember to take camera when filling bird feeders. 

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