Hunters of the North

As I may have mentioned before, as we were attempting to sell the house we discovered we had mice.

At first we thought it was just a few. Turns out the few were those looking to colonize the garage after the shed got over-crowded. We hadn't gone to the shed all winter; there's not a lot of need for lawn-mowers in December, so we had no idea it had turned into mouse heaven. It was sheltered and dry and had three bags of grass seed in it. Apparently for mice, this is as good as it gets.

So, when Way Cooler finally got to the shed and discovered the kingdom of mouse he began the arduous task of mouse eviction. However, some weren't going down without a fight and made it to the outer colony of the garage. Slowly but surely we dispatched those ones too, except one.

She was a feisty one. Never mess with a pregnant chick, be it mortal or mouse. She set up camp in our Christmas tree and when we vacuumed that nest out she found another house.

But by this point, the long dormant hunter part of my husband's genetic make-up was fully functioning. He was not to be bested by a pregnant female, at least not one that he didn't have to share a bed with. (He's a wise hunter and was often bested by this female when she was pregnant.)

It became his personal mission to find and exterminate this rodent.

Finally the weekend before we moved my dad was up and was helping Way Cooler move some boxes in the garage and they heard a squeak. Many, many boxes were then moved but the squeaking continued. They took this as a personal challenge.

Finally, they located her. She had hidden in one of my boxes of posters left-over from my teaching days. Flushed with victory they carried the whole box out of the garage. But what to do now? They couldn't let her escape! The problem was we are city folks and our neighbors wouldn't take kindly to them blasting away at a picture box with a .22.

Fortunately necessity is the mother of invention.

I took that particular moment to look out the front door to see how things were going. There, on my front lawn my dad and husband were beating a mouse to death, with rolls of my Christmas wrapping paper from Costco. I don't ever think I will be able to look at those snowmen the same way again.

But at least the hunters were victorious.