More Smiles and a baiting tip -

     What I posted yesterday, was titled 'Smile producers this morning'. Sometimes, it's the simplest, most basic things which can produce smiles. Yesterday afternoon and this morning held a couple more.
     One afternoon about two weeks ago, Benson and I were sitting in the living room watching something, when we spotted something shoot past under one living room window, and disappear behind the old radio. All my vertigo eyes saw, was a gray blur. Benson's eyes saw that it was a mouse. "Oh Great!" Been there, had those before. Thankfully, not very often in this house, but extremely frequently in one of our previous homes.
     I had told Brian about it, so last week Friday night, we had stopped in at Menard's(R) hoping to pick up mouse traps, amongst a couple of other items. Mouse traps are a basic kind of thing that you should be able to pick up at any 'ole hardware type of store, right? That's what we had thought. Man were we surprised to learn that they don't currently carry the good 'ole wood based, metal spring type of mouse traps, pictured below.

       Don't get me wrong, they did carry mouse killing products. They had a couple of different type of non-reusable enclosed traps, at $3 something each. And they carried a variety of what some deem the 'more humane' glue strips. As well as a large variety of mouse poison pellets. But they had not a single old wood based, metal spring style mouse trap. Nor did they have a space for them on the large end cap, where the rest of the products were available. Weird!
    My 'two cents worth' is, that I don't want to spend over $3 dollars just to kill a mouse. That if a mouse is dumb enough to enter my home, I want it killed, not making a racket due to being stuck to a glue strip. And I would rather find the mouse dead, connected to the wooden base, than randomly laying keeled over someplace, once the poison pellets it ate took effect.
     By the way, what is 'humane' about trapping a live mouse on a glue strip?!? Are you really suppose to somehow pick the live mouse with the attached glue strip up, take it out side, peel it free from the strip, wash it's feet off, and then let it go free? Really?!?!?!!! With out getting bit? And once free, can you also get the mouse to sign a contract to not again enter your home (or your neighbors), once it again starts the cold rains? I mean come on. It had the audacity to enter my home, thereby signing away it's right to life in my book. Mice are only cute in Disney type movies people!
     And a quick story (HONEST! o;-p) about the poison pellets. This story took place one of the times that we were doing food at our church's lodge over the course of a weekend, for some retreat. We had been in the lodge the night before, cooking and serving food. When I got there the next morning, there was the mouse we had had glimpses of a couple of times, laying dead on the floor, a few inches in front of the stove. It looked like it had been sniffing along and then just keeled over. Oh my goodness! "Ummm Brian... did you hear any complaints about what we served yesterday?"  "No-o, why?" "Come take a look at this...." He got rid of the carcass, and we silently kept our ears peeled to see if any one talked about having gotten sick. . . . .
     At church the NEXT weekend, the guy who is overseer for the lodge came up to Brian, questioning if we had seen many mice. He had gone in the week before and put out some poison.... He found Brian's tale HILARIOUS!!!! But then apologized profusely to me....  I did find the coinsidence yet another sign of God's sense of humorus timing.

    Any-ways, back to the mouse currently in our house.
    I think it was very early Thursday morning, I had gotten up to use the bathroom. As I started back through the dining room, I glanced over at Boo's water and food bowls. This is a normal thing for me to do. He often empties his bowl late at night, and I have found it best to just check it periodically. There, sitting behind the bowls, was a mouse. I had startled it as much as it startled me. Just wasn't planning on seeing a mouse sitting there. I didn't scream. Don't know that I ever have over mice. Not even the time that one ran up the length of my sleeping bag with me inside of it, at camp that one year... didn't want to wake my campers!!!
    The mouse behind Boo's bowl, took off behind the hutch and I made a mental note that we HAD to get traps, and to set them behind the radio and the hutch.
     Yesterday afternoon we went to Meijer's(R). Sure enough, they had the right kind of traps. :-) (Thank-you Benson for finding them!)
      After my nap, I set them. Not two hours later, I heard the one in the dining room go off. Boo's head snapped up! Daisy headed in to investigate. Sure enough. We had caught one. :-D (Brent, thank-you for emptying it for me. ;->)
      Later, I reset it. Immediately after getting up this morning, I checked both. Both are full :-D. Our arrangement is, that I set them and Brian empties them. So tonight we shall both due our respective duties and try again. I sent out the party invite to all spiders and bugs - guess I should have listed mice as well. ;-p

      Thought some of you might be interested in my highly efficient, even if left sitting for months, trap baiting tip.
      Good 'ole Nestle(R) Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips. Honest!

                          (click on the picture if you need to, to see it clearer)

     Just wedge a chip in under the teeth part of the trap. The mouse gets confident nibbling on the top, wants more, then BANG! S-e-l-d-o-m are they able to eat the whole thing with out the trap nailing them. ;->  And unlike cheese, the chocolate chip is still enticing a couple of months down the road, should it turn out you've caught all the ones currently in your home and you leave it set 'just in case'.  And unlike peanut butter, the chips don't leave a mess on the board, so unless the mouse does, you can keep reusing the traps. :->

    Yup, you NEVER know what I'll come up with to post about, huh?  o;-p