The mouse doth protest
The rainy season has begun. After a pleasant blip of some weeks of very moderate rain, sheets and buckets of water are lashing down the windows, blowing sideways onto the wood pile in the new lean-to, and exposing the torn section of the poultry palace to damp but hopefully not to disease.
It causes us all to duck for cover, including my old foes, the rodents. Favourite Handyman, my long time husband, supporter of my projects and soother of my fevered brow, cleared the mouse trap of another victim (victory to the humans) this morning. Then went off on a two-night tramp into the inner hills of the South Island to the backdrop of heavy rain warnings on the radio. When I came home for lunch I heard noises in the cereal cupboard. Vigorous noises. We've been there before and it isn't pretty. Properly caught mice do not make this kind of noise. Mice where only an extremity such as a tail or foot has been caught do make this kind of noise. While I wouldn't dream of putting most animals through this torture, this is a rodent. I don't do sympathy for rodents. The only good rodent is a dead one. And in the absence of my favoured person for putting them out of their misery, the door is staying shut until the noise stops. Completely.
I checked the door once this evening. Cue movement from the trap and a perfect, high scream from me. Fionn (6) asked me what I had dropped. I can hear movement now. It does seem a particularly cruel and slow death. But though I may walk over broken glass for my children, make compost from scratch for my garden and say yes to time-consuming projects for my community, I will not voluntarily deal with a live or half-live mouse.
It causes us all to duck for cover, including my old foes, the rodents. Favourite Handyman, my long time husband, supporter of my projects and soother of my fevered brow, cleared the mouse trap of another victim (victory to the humans) this morning. Then went off on a two-night tramp into the inner hills of the South Island to the backdrop of heavy rain warnings on the radio. When I came home for lunch I heard noises in the cereal cupboard. Vigorous noises. We've been there before and it isn't pretty. Properly caught mice do not make this kind of noise. Mice where only an extremity such as a tail or foot has been caught do make this kind of noise. While I wouldn't dream of putting most animals through this torture, this is a rodent. I don't do sympathy for rodents. The only good rodent is a dead one. And in the absence of my favoured person for putting them out of their misery, the door is staying shut until the noise stops. Completely.
I checked the door once this evening. Cue movement from the trap and a perfect, high scream from me. Fionn (6) asked me what I had dropped. I can hear movement now. It does seem a particularly cruel and slow death. But though I may walk over broken glass for my children, make compost from scratch for my garden and say yes to time-consuming projects for my community, I will not voluntarily deal with a live or half-live mouse.
Comments
hope yours has been sorted now :) Christy