It’s not their fault. It is their job to exist the best they can, but that doesn’t have to mean I have to like it. Mice.

There is great care and attention to the detail of mouse proofing the houses on these islands. Great pride at dinner gatherings when years pass and you can rightly boast your house is rodent free. No small task is it either. Daytime isn’t such an issue, but as the sun cools mice will enter your house with even the smallest crack of an opportunity.

Papa spent years training our children when they visited to close the screen doors immediately. No door was left open, even for a second to grab a cookie. I would never have French doors just for the reason that I haven’t seen a screen door system for a French door that instilled mouseless confidence. 

Papa had sliding glass doors with a sliding screen window. It was very effective keeping mice out but more than two of us walked through the screen after a beer or two… Tom has a screen door that swings both ways while the main door can stay open. He is going to make us one and I should think it will be a perfect solution. You know, for when we have walls.

In the meantime we are anything but mouseproof. We have been catching one mouse a night at the main opening but we can hear more fussing about in the wee dark hours. There is no food for them to get so I can’t imagine what they are eating. Perhaps they are bringing in take out…

This week we are taking out the fireplace wall. We moved the fireplace out onto the back deck waiting for its new home. The tile which E put in only five years ago all has to come out. While he was up at the W’s working on the truck this morning I thought I would clear some room to work around the fireplace.. Remember all our worldly goods are piled around our bed in what we could generously call a cozy arrangement… I moved the last chair out of the way and picked up the jacket which had fallen under the chair probably in March when this all began.

There were at least four mice under the jacket. All of whom scattered and ran toward my bed. I have set more traps and am not going to bed until we catch at least four mice. I am surprised you all didn’t 

hear me scream