Stillwaters Farm

Come be restored.

Thanksgiving, 2007:  Mouse Hunt

Ever feel like you’re caught up in the middle of a scene straight out of a movie?

 

Starting the day before Thanksgiving, that’s just what we were living.  The weather turned cold, and, as is standard operating procedure on any farm, the field mice decided that it was just about time to set up camp indoors.  You can expect to find a mouse now and again in the barn.  Even the shed is fair game.  The cat, of course, can patrol both and keep any wayward population in check.  However, a very intelligent little mouse decided that our kitchen was the place to be.  The night before our holiday guests arrived from out of state, I was sitting at the kitchen table making last minute plans for the festivities to come...when I saw “it”.  Just a shadow, it was, moving along the baseboards.  Whoosh!  And it was gone.  I thought, for a moment, that I was just seeing the reflection of a moth hovering near the ceiling light.  Not so, unfortunately.

 

Over the course of the next few days, this shadow made more and more appearances.  First, scurrying from under the stove into the pantry.  Then, from the pantry ‘round the cabinets and under the refrigerator.  Then, back again. So, I did what any self-respecting, empowered woman of the new century would do—I bought a sticky trap!  As a matter of fact, I bought several and placed them all along the baseboards, under the cabinets, and near the front of the fridge.  The game was on.

 

Our holiday guests came and went, and the little mouse continued to make his unannounced appearances.  Once, he poked his furry little head out from under the dishwasher and looked up at me, in a most challenging way, and took off over the sticky traps, circled the kitchen, and disappeared underneath the stove.  Downtrodden, but not licked yet, I dragged off to the hardware store for reinforcements:  the snap-type traps.  I purchased two.  I also purchased the “better-than-cheese-or-peanut-butter” bait to load them.  Once they were set, my husband carefully placed one beside the tall cabinet, and the other he reserved for the most special of places...between the stove and the cabinet.

 

Days went by and not a sign of the little mouse.  I knew he wasn’t gone, though.  He was taunting me.   The sticky traps—which were still anchoring most of the baseboards—were moved about at the mouse’s whimsy.  “He is taunting me,” I thought, “Showing me just how uncatchable he really is!”  I was beginning to believe that this little creature with the brain the size of an aspirin was smarter than me—a college graduate!  My mood plummeted, and I was ready to concede and call in a professional.

 

Then, one rainy afternoon, as I worked furiously in the office, I decided to take a short break and go into the house for a nice, warm hot chocolate.  As I entered the back door into the dining room, I heard a small squeak.  Not a ferocious growl...just a small squeak.  Then another...and another.  I began to look for the source of the noise, convinced that the mouse was in hiding somewhere calling out to drive me over the threshold of insanity.  Then, I saw him.  Right beside the stove, in that very special place, was the little mouse.  And the trap was on top of him!

 

Again, behaving like the empowered woman I know that I am, I SCREAMED for my husband to “come do his husbandly duty” and take this mouse outside to finish him off.  Being Italian, my husband armed himself with what was familiar—a pasta fork.  He lowered it down over the little mouse and pulled him from his hiding place.  As soon as the light of day appeared, the little mouse squeaked and jumped, doing his very best to get away.  But, alas, the trap had caught him by his back foot.  “Ha, HA!!!” I thought.  “Tried to jump over one too many, eh?”  I snickered silently to myself at the sight his rodent humiliation.

 

After a small tussle, my husband picked up the trap, with the little mouse suspended mid-air beneath it, and quickly exited the front door.   Once outside, we hadn’t a clue what to do with him.  Seeing his little whiskers twitch and his sweet little eyes begging to be released, our eyes rose and met one another’s, and our hearts began to melt.  We put the little guy down on the ground—trap and all—to try and figure out what to do next.  We didn’t have to wait long. 

 

From behind, we heard Jack, our barn cat, meow.  It was a curious meow, and he seemed to be saying, “Hey, are you gonna eat that?”  And in a flash, Jack  swooshed by us, snatched up the mouse—trap and all, and ran away to the carport under the truck that has become his dining lair.  Safely out of our reach, Jack dined on the fattest of mice.  And, when he finished, he batted the trap with a lazy paw like a well-fed guest would push away his dinner plate at the end of a good meal.

 

So came the end of our little, uninvited guest.  While not the most dignified of endings, it was, indeed, fitting. 

 

And life on the farm goes on...

 

December 21, 2007:  It’s a Wonderful Life!

A few days ago, one of our Great Pyrenees decided she’d had enough.  No longer was she happy with lounging about the small pasture with her mother and older brother keeping a wary eye on our Paint Stallion.  No, she longed for bigger, greener pastures...where the mares and cows and donkeys play.  So, in one swift move, she executed a well-thought plan.

 

Upon awakening, Monday morning, I followed my normal routine:  make the coffee, wait for the coffee, get a cup of steaming hot coffee, go out to the office and drink my coffee while reading the news and checking e-mails.  As I made my way out the back door and began the 30-second commute to the office, something just wasn’t quite right.  I looked around, and, much to my surprise, aliens had visited our farm during the night!  At least, that’s the only explanation I could think of before I’d consumed my first cup of liquid consciousness.  As I scanned the pasture, I noticed several changes: 

 

· Buster Brown, the bull calf who normally roams the main pasture with the rest of the cows, was now in the small pasture with the stud.

· Biscuit, the mini stallion who normally lives in the arena with his bride Misty, was standing just outside the front pasture gate.

· Two of our Great Pyrenees dogs, Gianni, and Huggy Bear, who normally reside with the stud horse, were roaming the main pasture. 

· Buttercup, the mommy GP who also normally resides with the stud, was laying sound asleep in the middle of the back yard.

 

“Great!” I thought, and I went into the office to drink my coffee, read the news, and try to understand just exactly what happened overnight.  When my husband awoke, we assessed the situation, checked the fence for breaks, and went about the task of getting everyone back where they are supposed to be.  Since Buster Brown seemed so happy at Tuff’s side, we decided to leave him there.  After all, we thought, what could it hurt?

 

The next morning, as I trekked from the house to the office with coffee in hand, Buster Brown was standing at the pasture fence drinking from the water trough.  Funny, I thought he was in the pasture with Tuff…  The dogs were out again, running around playing tag like all dogs do upon gaining their freedom.

 

Over the course of the next two days, and after putting the dogs away countless times, chasing the dogs down the road more times that we’d care to admit, and finally giving up on the whole situation, I discovered the breech.  Obviously, at the back of the shed row barn where Tuff’s pasture fence joins the back corner of the barn, Buster Brown had busted through like the fence was a swinging door.  Quick as a wink—with the horror of the image of Biscuit getting into Tuff’s pasture, or worse, Tuff getting out into the main pasture—I set about mending the fence with a large, welded steel fencing panel.  Problem solved!  ...or so I thought.

 

While Buttercup and Gianni seem content to be back in their old haunt, Huggy Bear seems unable to resist the call of the wild.  She has taken to scaling the fence in any spot she chooses, throwing caution to the wind and braving the several pulses garnered from the electric wire as she passes over the top.  I spent almost an hour yesterday, stomping through the surrounding woods looking for her.  Finally, I gave up and went on about my errands.  When I returned, there she was, fast asleep in the pasture.  She slept in the hay last night and was Johnny-on-the-spot for her breakfast this morning.  And we have decided to give up the fight.  If she wants to stay out, she may.  However, if she forgets breakfast time, she won’t eat.  If she gets herself into trouble at someone else’s house, she’ll have to suffer the consequences.  But, she seems content to loll away her time in the big pasture with the cows, the donkeys, the horses, the goats, and Newman.  She only seems to stray off property when she hears something that seems threatening—a coyote, a logger, a rabbit…

 

We’ll see how things go.  So far, so good.