Mouse Wars, redux

MAUSIAN DIARIES: MAUSGATE 9132013

9/3 It's officially Fall. Forget the equinox. The mice are back. A little early. I can't help but think they are foul weather predictors. Like little groundhogs. Apparently that lone August mouse was not an anomaly.

Over Labor Day weekend, the mice moved in and got cozy with the tea cozy and all my Rabbie Burns napkins. This won't do. Mice in the condiments/ tea drawer. I spend the morning pulling out kitchen drawers, and cleaning. TIme to dust off Victor-the-trap. If I can find it. Aha! Under the stove. Still set, patiently waiting all these years for a wayward mouse.

9/7 Gotcha! Good old Victor-the-trap, fit as a fiddle after years of benign neglect. Badda-boom! Can't say the same for my metal clippie mousetrap—a casualty of time. Rust is a great equalizer. I still have hope for my plastic clippie mousetrap—but my faith is eroding.

Uh-oh, the second one is a big mama mouse. Still nursing. There will be more. Mark my words.

91/2 All quiet on the mousy front. Victor-the-trap has been silent for days. Maybe I was lucky and got them all.

9/15 Oh no! Mouse poop on the cutting board. Fuck Rabbie Burns' To a Mouse. This is war. They've wiped out two old boxes of D-Con, but here's the dilemma: Dora the Cat is hanging out, so something's gotta go. Wow. I haven't checked out these cabinets in years. So that's where they went.

After a comical interlude where I asked the clerk for espejos (mirrors) instead of Miguel Ratóncito mouse traps in Spanish, I snagged two old-school mouse traps at the Dollar store. Do you know how hard it is to find old fashioned mousetraps? Now I get Build a better mousetrap. Otherwise, it's D-Con all the way, baby. Poison. Arsenic and old mice. But what about the environment? The outside cats? I'm uneasy about using all this poison.

My last major mouse invasion was Fall Equinox, 2009. See MOUSE WARS (warning: cute mouse pictures). Sure, we've had a few wayward mice since then. But nothing big. They never stuck around. Not like this.

9/17 Victor is victorious. But the knockoff mousetraps are worthless. I bumped Big Mama off, but Junior is still on the lam. Junior is the size of a quarter. Too small to trigger the traps, he snags the pecans and makes a run for it. What if he's carrying a disease?

How's that for a plague segue? I madly Google The Plague. No outbreaks reported—not even at Fallen Leaf Lake. I imagine I have symptoms like a pre-med student before exams. Swollen glands? That can't be good. No fleabites.

I have…a virus: oh, thankgawd. I also have acute hearing from my earache but not the cat reflexes to go with it. Probably a good thing or I'll be pouncing on the curtain and leaving little mouse prezzies on the doorstep for Neil.

I read up on house mice again. Definitely different than field mice. I learn that house mice (from Asia) are the same species as lab mice and pet store mice. And the chances of wild mice carrying disease are about the same as a pet hamster or rabbit. It's just that they poop all over the place. Now I'm afraid to use my cutting board. Three-seed baguette is out. Fennel seeds remind me of mouse turds.

Sorry, I'm not into those hav-a-heart traps. What's the point of live traps? All I'm doing by relocating the mice, is sicking vermin on unsuspecting neighbors. Too NIMBY. And all that goin' out to the country and feel-good wild release crap? Pl-ease! House mice are not native species. I repeat. Not native. Got it? They're from Asia, just like city rats. Introducing non-native species into a rural ecosystem is far worse than killing them in a humane manner. Besides, the mice won't even enter those live traps. Far too smart for that.

Bagged Mice

Why I bag the dead mice and pop them into the trash before somebody comes along to eat them is because they're probably pickled in poison. My neighbor feeds the birds—I mean she really FEEDS the birds gallons and gallons of birdseed falling on the ground which equals an exponential summer explosion of mice and rats.

At first I thought it was cute. All the baby mice playing on the picnic table. Until they moved into our cottages. Our manager thought otherwise, and squirreled D-Con poison traps under all the houses. This resulted in little mice staggering out for a drink before death. Mice who never drink water, dying of thirst, and arsenic, bleed to death, but the poison is still lethal—in mouse corpse form. We also have rats, cats, raccoons and 'possoms. So I bag the pickled mice. Ziplock snack bags make the best body bags. 

When the mice move in, at summer's end, I tend to go crazy popping them off with flipflops, or batting them to left field with long paper tubes—screaming some form of ju-jitsu, hairy-carrying on like a madwoman. They get into the house and chew chew chew paper. Then poop poop poop everywhere. Books, manuscripts, art., nothing is sacred. I use the old-fashioned snapping traps. No poison. Now my nights are filled with the sound of castenet-snapping mouse traps.

No Mouser, Jack

Ceilidh the young Siamese-tabby spent the other morning diligently staring and chatting at the bottom of the file cabinet. We took out the drawers, found nothing of interest—other than the usual odd lost things—so, that's where it went! No errant lizards. Eventually she was rewarded for her vigilance: a pink-eared field mouse staggered out in circles from under the cabinet, cute as a cartoon cutout.

With a spectacular leap, Ceiildh caught the dazed mouse, but then the marmalade cat, Jack stole it out from under her in midair. Then he brought the mouse into the living room to share his new toy with us. 

I have been bringing him new catnip and feather toys in order to make friends with him—he's very shy. I am clearly a danger. Not a certified petter. But he's thawing—I'm the bringer of toys. It's taken several weekends to convince him I've no plans to eat him. So he shows his appreciation by playing with his new toys.

Jack and Ceilidh waiting for the feathers to make a run for it.

Jack sat on the carpet and put down his new mouse toy to check it out—but it up and ran away on him. The perplexed look on his face was priceless. I laughed so hard, he got upset and lost track of the mouse.

Then my cousin Sinead leapt off the couch screaming like a banshee: get the mouse! Get the mouse! Jack, don't let it get away! as it made for the stairs, then it headed for the gap under Dave's bedroom door. Not a good outcome. He'd be really pissed off if a mouse moved in. Luckily, the bathroom door was wide open. Sinead headed them off and chased them both into the bathroom. 

Then Sinead threw a growling, hissing Ceilidh into the bathroom for good measure, and blocked off the bottom of the bathroom door with a towel. The bathroom was now the designated cat dungeon of shame. The only way out was a coup de grâce. Like that was going to happen.

But the field mouse must've escaped down the drainpipe hole in the sink cabinet. No other exit was possible and clearly the cats didn't eat him. Two confused cats now think the bathroom is possessed, or Sinead is. Or maybe both. Sort of like vacuum cleaners. Very bad objects.

Ceiildh spends her time hunting for that lost mouse, and mewling forlornly all over the house while Jack, the bum, keeps berzerking up and down the extra tall deluxe cat tree—nearly capsizing it. Some sort of a killer victory dance. 

Jack's a bit of a blond on a good day—he's not very clear on the subject of cat-and-mouse. He fetches his toy squirrels and catnip spider and brings them to Dave ever so nicely, chases feather wands, drags the big blue feather duster upstairs to attack and thump it like a mighty lion, blue feathers everywhere like pieces of fallen sky—but clearly, he's no mouser.

Jack, clearly he's no mouser. Not jack.

Ceilidh is inconsolable in her grief—somehow she knows that she's missed out on that big primal first kill. Bugs don't count anymore. Better luck next time. Hopefully she'll know what to do. Jack, well, he's another story. However, our feet poking out of beds in the middle of the night are fair game. And they must be punished.

Ceiildh = Caylee, means a party in Irish.

Lúghnasa

The Mórríghan, my namesake, dressed as a crow was calling outside my window at dawn: it's Lúghnasa! Or maybe it was Lúgh's raven. I couldn't see it, I was trying to sleep. The bird didn't really caw, it was more like a bark: get up you lazybones. I pulled the pillows over my ears. It kept barking. (I was up all night listening to Dick Francis' Even Money. It takes longer to listen to a book than to read it. And I can never put a good book down.)

Only the male crow sings. It's a rather mournful little warble. This one was barking orders outside my window like a drill sargeant. It could have been a raven, but ravens in Oakland? They are deep-voiced. Croak, the raven, evermore? Let's just say corvids were involved.

OK, OK, I'm up. Got it. It's Lúghnasa. (No, not the band). I can't climb the highest peak, nor dance, nor even circle the proverbial well—not with this torn knee. Yesterday I cleaned house for the first time since I was injured in March, and am paying dearly for it. But somehow the body keeps time with tradition, despite the century one is living in. About the only thing up for dancing today, is my imagination.

Sometimes The Mórríghan, the Great Queen, is called the phantom queen, or the war goddess. Or "Morrigu" for short. She's an ancient triune goddess land/ soverighnty. As in mother of the gods. Some say the Welsh Morgan le Fey is a cognate of the Mórríghan (or Morrigan), others say no FN way—it's a case of bad linguistics.

That little fada (accent) on the first syllable, mór changes the meaning of the word from sea—mor, muir, mer—(or horse—but I really don't see how anyone can get "horse" out of it) to—great, or big—as in The Big Kahuna.

My Welsh friend Mábli named me The Mórríghan in grad school and it stuck. I miss Mábli, living far awa' in Stornowa'. I know, Maureen is supposed to mean little Mary—but I fancifully said that's a Christian overlay for a name already in Irish mythology. And so, The Mórríghan moniker stuck.

Maíriín is Maíri with a diminutive ending, -ín, or in English: Maura + -een. Like Colleen: cail + în. You're probably thinking Maureen sounds nothing like Mórríghan. Welcome to Irish 1A. That -gh in the middle of Mórríghan is silent, more of a swallowed y sound. Like a gulp. Call this an exercise in false etymology, or maybe a bad case of vivid poetic imagination.

About the only thing that warring camps of Indo-European linguists do agree on is that rí = king/queen, or soverignty. The rest is up for grabs.

Then there's the thought that Mor-ríghan is cognate with Morgan idea, with no fada, as in the sea. This is where it gets tricky. She-of-the-sea, my old boyfriend, climber-poet Edwin Drummond (aka The Human Fly) used to call me. Great big sea. (No, not the band). Fanciful wordplay drives linguists to drink, but if you're an IE linguist, where consonants count for little, and vowels count for nothing at all, any excuse to drink is probably good. Or if you're a poet. Besides, who wants to be called Biitter Herbs anyway? Just don't call me Battleaxe.

You're probably wondering what all this has to do with Lúghnasa, or August 1. I'm wending my way there. Never could think straight, so it's widdershins for me. My thoughts travel at the speed of Celtic knots. Or maybe I'm bird-brained from being wakened at dawn.

The crow is one of the Mórríghan's animal personae, a shape-shifter. Not only was she a triple goddess—there's fierce debate as to which three goddesses—she could turn into an eel and a wolf as well as a white, red-eared heifer (OK, so that's four critters—which goes against the Celtic trinity thing).

But in Irish literature, The Mórríghan was most famous as the scaldcrow, or raven on the shoulder of CúChullain's corpse—he died, strapped to a menhir on the battlefield in the Táin Bó Cúailnge while she ate his guts. She is the Irish goddess of war and fate. The washer at the ford, she ordains who will live or die on the battlefield.

Those two had a serious love-hate thing going on. Cú should never have spurned The Mórríghan  when she offered herself up. (She had this re-virgination land thing going on too). You know what they say about a woman scorned. Kick that up a few notches when she's an cougar sovereign goddess—and mother of the gods. Besides, Lúgh was Cú's father. So, I'm sure there was another interesting triangle going on as well. Welcoming them home with open thighs, and all that. Let's just say she's complicated.

Lúgh too had a thing about those corvids—oracle ravens. You know, the ravens at the Tower of London? No wonder the Romans had to bury statues of imperial Roman eagles there. To break up the juju. Some say London is Lugh's city, Lugdunum. Did the ancient Irish distinguish between ravens and crows? They're both Otherworld carrion birds. Some IE linguists claim that the Gaulish lugos (Lúgh is a cognate) means raven. Or maybe it means *lug as in oath, pledge, or in Proto-Indo European it could mean *leuk (light). Or maybe it's wordplay with ravens. —Check out Lugh - in Mary Jones dictionary.

The Hound of Ulster's man-handle was CúChullain, but his baby name was Sétanta (sé as in Sidhe?). There was something odd about his birth(s): unseasonable snow, birds, twinned colts (making it a triad birth), maybe some kidnapping or infantacide. Let's just say he-who-was-to-become-Sétanta, then CúChullain, died more than once, and Lúgh had to stick the kid's soul back into Deichtine's womb all over again. (Deichtine was sort of like the Welsh Arianrhod (silver wheel) and her magical sons: Dylan Ail Don and Lleu Llaw Gyffes. All these multiple virgin births. I'm sure their Facebook status is set to: It's extremely complicated. Monks trying to shoehorn Irish mythology into Biblical shoes.)

So when the Mórríghan was calling me nine times outside my window at dawn, in a place where crows don't normally visit—it got my attention. Made me realize it's a feastday. A crossroad of the year. I thought about baking some sodabread to celebrate the great wheel of the year. Not that I actually did anything, other than attempt to write this blogín.

The other ancient  Irish feast days are largely forgotten—but everybody knows of Hallowe'en, or Samhain. Then there's Imbolc (first milk) and Beltane (Bel's fires). And Lúgnasadh. Or Lúghnasa—its Christian frock is the harvest, or first-new-grain-loaf festival, aka Lammas Day. Technically, Lúghnasa began yesterday, as Irish days, like Hebrew days begin at dusk.

Today is the feastday of the god Lúgh Lámhfhada. And whenever you begin invoking the old Irish gods, they all want to come to the party. And young Lúgh, a bona fide member of the Tuatha Dé Danann, was the young rising god, a real party animal. 

Lúgnasa is the half-way mark between the summer solstice and autumn equinox. The word is a combination of Lúg (the god Lúgh) and -násad (which is an assembly, or gathering). His handle, Lámhfhada means long arm. God of all arts, he was really good with his, er… spear. (See also pan-Celtic god Lugus, and Welsh counterpart Lleu Llaw Gyffes, "The Bright One with the Strong Hand.")

Lúgh (modern: Lú) founded the Óenach Tailten (the ancient Irish Olympic Games—similar to the Greek Games) as a funeral feast for his (foster) mother Tailtiu, queen of the Fir Bolg. Royal fosterage was a big deal in ancient Irish mythology—it built alliances between clans and tribes. Foster children had mixed allegiances—to their foster families, and to their blood kin. 

Cian of the Tuatha Dé Danann was Lugh's father, and Ethniu, daughter of Balor, of the Fomorians, was his mother. (Or Lugh had three fathers, or was born three times, or was a lone surviving triplet—Balor drowned the others.) Got that? There's a test at the end, should you ever get to the bottom of it. I would imagine most of you are stark raving by now—with all those pimpley hyperlinks screaming: pick me, pick me!

So, we have three conjoined Irish races: Tuatha Dé Danann (TDD), and some Fomorians from under the sea (making Lúgh a half-god), with the Fir Bolgs as his foster parents. Add fosterage with Manannán mac Lír at Emhain Abhlach (Anglesey) too. we're not to sure what mythical race he was, TDD? Manannán arms Lúgh. So, Lúgh has three fathers, and/or is triplets, or was the product of a triple birth. Good old Indo-European threes. Surely that was significant. I said, it's complicated. Gawd, I need a drink.

Lúgh's poor foster mother Tailtiu, died of exhaustion after clearing the plains of Ireland for agriculture. Not too sure what all the menfolk were doing when all this was happening. Sitting on their keisters swilling heather beer in yon bonny glen? Apparently clearing the fields was women's work—even if she was the queen. What's with that? Master and commander?

So Lúgh of the Long Arm threw his foster mother Tailtiu the mother of all Irish wakes, or funeral feasts—if you must. The first Óenach Tailten, or Áenach Tailteann, was traditionally said to be held at modern Teltown, County Meath. Telltown is a corruption of Tailtu's name. It's also the seat of the early Uí Néills, so locating it there is a dynastic thing. Turf wars and all that. They later footed the bill for the See of St. Patrick at Armagh and took on some retroactive airs.

The Óenach Tailten Games were celebrated as late as the 18th century and included feasting, fighting and fecking. Or the ritual sacrifice of a white bull, heavy athletic competitions, handfasting, dancing, pilgrimages to the top of Croagh Patrick and to holy wells (Brigid, the beer goddess and the hearth is invoked), and the ritual cutting of the first harvest grain—with August 1 as the epicenter. 

Surely you didn't think these parties lasted only a day, did you? More like a month and a day. Takes about a week or two to ease into it. Like poets arriving fashionably late. Then, it was party like a rock star for another week or so, then nurse the hangover. Willow bark tea was as good as it got for aspirin.

See, when the Games were gussied up and Christianized, the sagarts had to make the festival fall on a Sunday to make things work out right. Eddie Stack mentioned in his blog that July 26 was Féile Lúghnasa. It's a movable feast—whatever it takes to make it to fall on the last Sunday in July.

One time it was held at around 200 sites, nearly always remote, inaccessible places that were on heights, or near water. The festival was dedicated to Lúgh, the young and most brilliant god of the Tuatha de Danann. Lúgh was the god of light, god of arts and crafts, father of inventions and the likes. It was he who saved the harvest by vanquishing Bal, the sun god who was in the process of scorching all the country’s plants and crops with relentless heat.  —Eddie Stack 2010

Lúghnasa is ancestor of Aonach an Phoic Puck Fair, Domnach na bhFraochóg, or Bilberry Sunday. (AKA frachóg, whorts, or heatherberries. In our family, August is also the opening day of huckleberry season. My grannie would take us up the ridge at Tomales Bay to check on the bushes. Just to make sure.)

The Áenach Tailteann is also the ancestor Games of Scottish Highland Games—as they too were traditionally held in August. 

Lúghnasa was once called Dé Domhnach Chrom Dubh, or Crom Dubh Sunday—he was a bent/crooked dark fertility god, said to reside in a cave at the crest of Croagh Patrick. But Christianity banished him as an evil one.  Another permutation of Lúghnasa is Domhnach na Cruaiche—Reek Sunday, or Garland Sunday, is the day 30,000 Irish lemmings crawl up Croagh Patrick on bended knee. Or blindfolded, or both, while praying all the way up with myriad jaysusmaryanjosephs. Not me, my knees will never kneel again. Though I do prefer to walk barefoot.

Pilgrims climbing Croagh Patrick on "Reek Sunday," part of the festival of Lúgh since ancient times. —Wiki

Lúgh Lámhfhada was also the patron god of cobblers. Thought I'd throw that one in for free. The thought of shoes at a time like this tickles me. I can't bend down to put on my shoes. Besides, the closest I got to a holy well today was the shower. I was circling the drain. Does dyeing your hair count as pilgrimage?

So you had a few goats, some old and new, toss in a bit of the living and the dead, and the dead coming back to life again—what more could you ask for? An "A" party list.

Lá Fhéile Lúghnasa Sona Daoibh!

Sweeping the floor

About sweeping that kitchen floor—let's just say, I'm easily distracted. Call it ADD syndrome or short attention span. It began innocently enough last week with a light sweeping, then some damp mopping. Within the realm. Then I scraped off some white paint. OK. 

It's an old house from the 1920s, and the fake brick tile from the 1970s is crumbling at the seams. So I spackled some holes, it was whitey-white, so then I faux-painted the patches. 

I'm dangerous with paint. I start out all precise and neat, call it anal retentive, a dainty little patch job. Then something comes over me and gears shift. Vroom, I'm off! I become a demented Jackson Pollack with a paintbrush in hand. The graffiti tags on the bookshelf I just scored? No problem. Faux wood grain coming up. That hole in the wall that I keep trying to kill because it brings out my inner spider killer? Spackle (or toothpaste) is good.

It's a good thing I'm wounded, or I would've tackled rotted bathroom too. Turns me into a rather addled cross domestic war goddess. Moving the piano across the floor didn't help either. 

Since I can't bend my knee, getting down to floor level is an act of gravity—as in prostrate. Cross-legged is not an option. So I have to keep my leg straight out in front of me. It's a formidable barrier. I'm flexible, but not that flexible. Getting back up off the floor is a journey involving anti-gravity prayers and curses when those AG prayers don't hold. 

What possessed me to clean house, other than an acute attack of ADD, was that I could smell Autumn in the air, even though it is still July. Something about the changing light invokes an inexplicable sadness, or melancholia as the fall approaches. Or maybe it was the odor of dead mouse.

So as I was cleaning house a little here, a little there—oh, shiny! What was I doing? Takes me ages to complete simple tasks. I was dying for a cup of tea. The pilot light blew out on the stove. Hours later, I've dismantled the entire stovetop and counter, scraped off a decade of grunge from under the burners. Cleaned the greasy spice jars too. Tea? What tea? Can't reach the oven unless I use a chair and there's only so much I'm willing to do. 

I've been flopping down like a a fish and rolling about like a drunken narwhal to get from point A to B, while swearing like a sailor. Rearranging my computer space with all the plugs on the floor (and in tight corners) involved a lot of groveling and snorting of dustbunnies. 

My physical therapist said, So don't clean house! Like that was an option.

But there's only so many months you can go it alone before the floor turns to foot-velcro. It all began when a mouse left turds on the breadboard. That's a call to war if ever there was one. Traps, poison, shoes—I'm a shameless hunter when it comes to mice. 

I think a mouse died under the sink (good old D-con makes them thirsty so they seek out water.) but I can't get down on the floor and under the sink with my leg out in front of me like a freakin' log to check it out unless I lie flat on a skateboard. The dog pose is not an option.

Don't even get me started on the fridge. It's jealous and wants my attention too. I know this because it pees on the floor.


A link:
MOUSE WARS

SUMMER MOUSE HAIPU

SUMMER MOUSE HAIPU
(Or my Heart of Darkness when it comes to mice)

Amid fennel seeds
mouse turds on the cutting board—
mistah mouse, he dead.

Shoe de Gras Mouse Wars

Two mice down, and how many more ?? more to go. I think I need a puddytat. The glue traps work best. But then, you have to dispatch the critters to the great mouse beyond. The old fashioned wooden ones are best—all I managed to trap so far, was my index finger.

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I would love to hear the WHACK of a wooden trap right about now. I hear another mouse rustling. So far, no good. And Mom Mouse is on the loose too. You think she's noticed she's lost three of her pups? Snap! Snap! 4, 5...pups down ? How many more to go. Where's Mama?

There's probably one more pup plus mama to go. The midnight mouse was instantly dispatched to the great beyond.
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However, I forgot I'd also set a rat trap—they've been scampering over it for weeks. A whole lotta good it did. As I retrieved the mouse trap with its tiny cargo, the rat trap went off with a thunderous bang. I screamed, having nearly stuck my hand in the rat trap. It would have broken a finger or two.

Last mouselet was caught fair & square at 4:30 AM, but it also screamed. Then I couldn't go back to sleep. Still quite queasy but I also feel like the cat with her trophy mice. Each time I am reminded how we are both mammals. The little hunched shoulders, the delicate beauty of their forearms and paws.... Anthropomorphizing does not assuage memory.

Now, moles are good guys, unlike gophers. They eat bugs. I've had a few as pets. The cats had a hard time killing them off.

My resolve is steeled. My girders are loined. I went all soft on them in the past. Never again. But I do admire their beauty. Clearly, I'm not afraid of mice. It's the dispatching that makes me queasy. And, live release is just plain old stupid.

Neil's useless when it comes to mouse dispatch and disposal. He squeals like a girl. Backs off and leaves me to it. WHAP!

My flip flop did the coup de gras. If I catch it, I gotta kill it. No needless suffering. Very Zen. Whap. Ugh. I got Ma Mouse the other night, fair & square. XXed out eyes and all. Ah, quiet. No more scampering of little mouse feet. Shoe de gras!

A mama mouse has at least 6 babies.  Apparently the optimum average litter size is 10–12 pups. I think I'm closing in on it. Mama is in my sights.

What I now know: glue traps are only good once. Rat traps don't even snap on mice, but will viciously leap into the air when your hand trespasses in their airspace. Mice avoid the last place of mousiedeath‚ setting traps in the same spot is futile. You have to think like a mouse. Mouse mind meld. Baseboards are like runways. The obvious mouse chute spot never yields results. 
<3 3="" all="" and="" any="" as="" asian="" at="" attract="" besides="" bird-mad="" cakes="" can.="" chocolate.="" clean="" d="" dark="" does="" drawer="" dry="" field="" go="" godiva="" goods="" hand.="" house="" i="" is="" letting="" list="" mice.="" mice="" my="" native="" nbsp="" neighbor="" ninja="" no.="" not="" on="" ouse="" out="" overfeeds="" p="" problem.="" re="" rice="" rodents.i="" rolls.="" s="" sandals="" seeds="" shortlist.="" so="" solve="" special="" that="" the="" them="" they="" tinfoil="" trap="" unlike="" war="" way="" whap="" whatever="" wiped="">
<3 3="" all="" and="" any="" as="" asian="" at="" attract="" besides="" bird-mad="" cakes="" can.="" chocolate.="" clean="" d="" dark="" does="" drawer="" dry="" field="" go="" godiva="" goods="" hand.="" house="" i="" is="" letting="" list="" mice.="" mice="" my="" native="" nbsp="" neighbor="" ninja="" no.="" not="" on="" ouse="" out="" overfeeds="" p="" problem.="" re="" rice="" rodents.i="" rolls.="" s="" sandals="" seeds="" shortlist.="" so="" solve="" special="" that="" the="" them="" they="" tinfoil="" trap="" unlike="" war="" way="" whap="" whatever="" wiped="">Mouse poison is green mousecandy—they eat so little at a time that their metabolism counteracts the poison, and they become immune rather quickly—sort of like a scene from Arsenic and Old Lace. Rodent poison only works on rats. Or does it?  You have to maintain a kamakazi mindset. Any softening of the heart will derail your mission. Sleep will be fleeting. You will listen for that snap! snap! of traps even in dreams. Dances With Wolves mouse scenes will pervade your dreams.

In desperation you will begin to tear apart junk drawers and cabinets you haven't delved into for years. You will pull out all your saved paper bags, and all the plastic ones too. The special birthday and holiday bags you were saving for a rainy day, but can't find them when you need them, all trashed. In the farthest reaches of the cabinet that was once an icebox cooler, a box of forgotten china, props from a play. Ah, red willow teacups converted into mouse condos. 
<3 3="" all="" and="" any="" as="" asian="" at="" attract="" besides="" bird-mad="" cakes="" can.="" chocolate.="" clean="" d="" dark="" does="" drawer="" dry="" field="" go="" godiva="" goods="" hand.="" house="" i="" is="" letting="" list="" mice.="" mice="" my="" native="" nbsp="" neighbor="" ninja="" no.="" not="" on="" ouse="" out="" overfeeds="" p="" problem.="" re="" rice="" rodents.i="" rolls.="" s="" sandals="" seeds="" shortlist.="" so="" solve="" special="" that="" the="" them="" they="" tinfoil="" trap="" unlike="" war="" way="" whap="" whatever="" wiped="">
<3 3="" all="" and="" any="" as="" asian="" at="" attract="" besides="" bird-mad="" cakes="" can.="" chocolate.="" clean="" d="" dark="" does="" drawer="" dry="" field="" go="" godiva="" goods="" hand.="" house="" i="" is="" letting="" list="" mice.="" mice="" my="" native="" nbsp="" neighbor="" ninja="" no.="" not="" on="" ouse="" out="" overfeeds="" p="" problem.="" re="" rice="" rodents.i="" rolls.="" s="" sandals="" seeds="" shortlist.="" so="" solve="" special="" that="" the="" them="" they="" tinfoil="" trap="" unlike="" war="" way="" whap="" whatever="" wiped="">One mouse will make a run for it, right between your knees. You will shriek, leap up into the air like a startled cat, then, look for the mouse, only to find you've killed it by kneeling on it, barelegged, in bent supplication. Your kitchen resembles a war zone. But hey, pup number 6 is dead by bent knee. A carnal prayer for the dead mice becomes a mantra. 

<3 3="" all="" and="" any="" as="" asian="" at="" attract="" besides="" bird-mad="" cakes="" can.="" chocolate.="" clean="" d="" dark="" does="" drawer="" dry="" field="" go="" godiva="" goods="" hand.="" house="" i="" is="" letting="" list="" mice.="" mice="" my="" native="" nbsp="" neighbor="" ninja="" no.="" not="" on="" ouse="" out="" overfeeds="" p="" problem.="" re="" rice="" rodents.i="" rolls.="" s="" sandals="" seeds="" shortlist.="" so="" solve="" special="" that="" the="" them="" they="" tinfoil="" trap="" unlike="" war="" way="" whap="" whatever="" wiped="">WHAP!

Mouse Wars

Our neighbor Brooke is a real animal lover, she nurses stray and orphaned cats back to health, but her true passion is birds. One time I found her camouflaged in the hedge of my front garden, binoculars and tally sheet in hand, counting birds for a local birding club as there was a bird flu decimating the local population.

She's created a fabulous plant jungle around her house, an urban oasis in Oakland. She planted a birdbath and several bird feeders for her fine-feathered friends which drives Angelino Bernini, the resident black cat, crazy. Angelino may weigh in at 20 pounds, and though he's at least 12 years old—if not older—and missing a few teeth, he's still an avid birder. So his yard going days are curtailed. A tortured soul, he watches the birds from the window, with whiskers curled, at the ready, chatting a-a-a-ah, followed by a forlorn meow behind his Guantanamo prison of glass.

Brooke's bird-feeding urge started out small, with one small hummingbird feeder, followed by a rude platform on a post, then she put up a sleek plexi & chrome cylinder high-rise filled with millet and birdseed. She hung it from a branch, but the sunflower seeds jammed up the works.

So that sleek feeder was soon followed by a chalet style birdhouse feeder for the sunflower seed-eating birds. They came in such droves, it sounded like a Star Trek convention. The singing lemon tree quivered like an eager hound waiting for the word as they energetically hopped and chittered in its branches.

To keep up with the growing appetite of her feathered friends, she started buying sacks of birdseed and sunflower seeds in bulk. At this point, the husks and shells were creating such a thick mulch around the hydrangeas, it was attracting more than just the birds.

First to arrive were the red squirrels who loved the sunflower seeds meant for the grosbeaks, sparrows and finches. Every day they tussled with each other to get to the bird feeder. Word got out. Soon there were squirrel gang wars when the mothers would bring their young to the feeder.