I
don’t like mice. Why anyone would even want to have one as a pet is beyond my
understanding. Our son, Jon, had some white mice once. I’m sure I didn’t give
him permission, but there they were in a cage in his bedroom. That was all fine
and good until the day they got out. Fine and good no longer mattered, they
were now rodents in my house and I had the right to kill them. I can’t remember
if we set traps or if he finally found them and transported them somewhere else
but they disappeared.
I
remember when my Dad had a mouse run up his pant leg while he was out working
in the shop repairing some farm equipment. It didn’t take long for Dad to
discard his pants, all the while dancing and hollering.
One
summer day when we were living at the ranch in Dehlin, my two oldest sons, then
about the ages of four and five, were in the shed helping their Grandpa
Schwieder. You can imagine how much help two that age would be. Well they came
to the house and into the kitchen with their hands held cup like. “Look what we
found Mom. Grandpa said to bring them in to show you.” In their hands were
tiny, pink baby mice. They didn’t even have their eyes open. Now I really believe
the boy’s grandfather was grinning out in the shed, just waiting to hear a scream
from me and maybe even see me run from the house. Instead, I calmly looked at those
two innocent boy’s cupped hands, being careful not to get too close, told them
what cute baby mice they had, and said, “Now take them back out to Grandpa.”
Grandpa never said a thing to me about that incident, but I think I
disappointed him.
We
have had problems with mice in our house at the ranch all of the time, but
traps would usually control them. I used to be really naïve, believing anything
Boyd told me. “Don’t worry,” he said one night as we were in bed and could here
mice running around, “they can’t climb up on the bed.” When one ran across my
pillow, over my face and onto the window sill, I knew I had been deceived! Boyd
calmly moved over to the window, which was on my side of the bed, closed the
window, trapping the mouse between the window and screen, and figured he had
the problem solved. He slept well that night, I didn’t. Next morning he opened
the window, caught the mouse and escorted it outside. And I no longer believe
everything he says.
Another
time, again at the ranch, we had been to the valley and when we got back we
found the screen door hadn’t been shut tight. We had a lot of mice running
through the house that evening. We handled this one differently: I laid on the
couch on my stomach, while Boyd was on the floor with a BB gun and a flash
light. When I saw a mouse run I pointed it out to Boyd and he would shine the
flashlight in it’s eyes and shoot. He shot quite a few mice that night.
We
still get mice in the house at the ranch but with traps and DeCon, we seem to
be able to control them. They like to move into the house in the late fall and
stay all winter, besides running through during the summer. We have had mice in our valley home, but not
as often. And we have a cat that is a good mouser. Our dogs like to chase and
catch mice also, so the mice have to be extra brave before they venture into
the house. And then they have to face me, that person who hates mice.
