BigHouse Mouse
I have set up these gadgets two nights in a row. The way these gadgets work is you spread a little bait, I use peanut butter, on a metallic part that is connected to a metal arm that holds in check this spring mechanized noninvasive guillotine arm that actually works more like a catapult from hell, and when working properly, will snap almost in two the neck of the rodent in your kitchen. Sometimes it gets him by the tail and you have to chase the panicked clacking around the house for awhile before your work is done.
But I come up here in the morning from my mouseless, cat-occupied dwelling down the hill and the metal part is licked clean of peanut butter and the trap is unsprung.
I could bring the cat up here (even though the owners don't really want cats up in here) and set him loose hoping he still has a bit of the hunter spirit. Though it may be that the only thing he is hunting at this point in his life is time. The time when I pour his kibbles into a bowl in the morning. Or the time at night when I play kung fu warrior with him.
Alas, this is the nature of what I now consider travail, the unsprung trap, a mild (frankly non-existent) resentment towards the well-fed mouse, so let it all be considered fine and good.
I once retrieved a shivering, beer-drenched mouse from a snowstorm so it could resume it's life of skittering behind the stove. It was my roommate who poured her beer on it, before chasing it outside. Not quite as mean as a cat, but close.
when we lived over the odeon, skinny went on a mouse killing frenzy the likes of which i hope to never see again. for two nights he set traps and then would lie in wait in our sleeping loft. i'd wake up to see him peering over edge at every click of the trap, then he'd go down, clean it out and reset (peanut butter proving far superior to cheese or chicken). i think he got 15 in one night. it was awful. good luck.
cats are 99% deterrence, 1% kill
The wife got some organic chocolate bars from a friend and stored them in a cabinet over the fridge. The uninvited mouse could have had all sorts of grains but preferred the chocolate.
The first night , I left the hinged trap unsprung on the floor near where droppings were left. Already nibbled chocolate pieces were glued to the trap with peanut butter. The rodent was lulled into a false confidence with a happy meal. The second night the trap was set. At 2am the clatter of wood on linoleum startled me awake, and as I headed for the kitchen, the other painful, squeaking sound became apparent.
Would I find splattered blood and viscera around the corner from where the ugly mix of sounds were coming?
Oh shit!, what to do with a pinned -down, live and kicking rodent- club him with a hammer? The visualized outcomes poured through my fuzzy brain... THAT'S IT.
I slowly stepped on the brass hinge that held his head tight to the wood with my slippered foot. He squirmed weakly and I realized a little more pressure would quicken his demise. I was completely in control of his death with a firm step, not needing to crush or to gloat. And so it ended, quiet at that hour, under the blaze of florescent lights
I put the body in a paper sack and went out into the mild night air, out into the darker alley where the stinky, composter drum sits, with its' gooey, maggot infested contents. In went the mouse with the rotting vegetation, egg shells and brocolli stems. Live, die, get eaten- you got a better suggestion?
In spite of NOLA heat this afternoon and no a/c for the Saturn, I dutifully returned some tile-laying tools to J's friend in Chalmette. Progress in The Parish means one-lane reductions on Judge Perez for no apparent reason and a whole lot of whiteness.
Hot 8 trombonist was shot and killed yesterday while driving a stolen truck to a second line gig for a friend in the Treme. Squad cars cornered the truck, officers approached, and he either tried to use the truck to run them over or he was shot like a dog, depends on whether its Capt. DeFillo or his grandmother who's talking. Saturday and Sunday is Satchmofest at the Mint, with brass stage on Esplanade.
Amidst a break in writing from the Jeff. Davis downtown view, here's an [ir]relevant take on cats and mice: "According to the anthropologist Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, 'Cats may be assuming the role of educator when they bring prey indoors to their human owners. . . . A mother cat starts teaching her kittens from the moment they start following her. . . . Later she gives them hands-on practice by flipping [wounded] prey back to their nests or dens so that their homebound kittens can practice, especially if the prey is of manageable size. So perhaps cats who release living prey in our houses are trying to give us some practice, to hone our hunting skills.'"
Any interest in me making use of your NOLA voter registration for the September local/state elections? I'd reimburse your postage for absentee vote. Speaking of which, your video collection took in $45 for a bathroom renovation fund at a recent yard sale.
My cat 'n mouse story follows. Pardon if I've shared it before in this forum. Siblings Widget and Yossarian we about a year old. Yoyo's litter was about 5 weeks old. (I suspected the neighborhood orange tom, because one of the kittens was orange.)
I had a mouse inside the cabinets, and wasn't sure what to do until I remembered, "Hey, I gots cats!" Widget went in first, snagged the little mouse, took it into the corner, and started playing volley mouse. He tossed it in the air, batted it about, grabbed it with his mouth, tossed it in the air again, etc. Yoyo and the kittens gathered to watch. Yoyo got a shot at the mouse, clamped her mouth over it's head, and strangled it. Very simple, very efficient, very dead.
Yoyo dropped it, and let the kittens examine it. Widgers batted at the mouse a couple of times and was just heartbroken. "That was the coolest toy ever, and you broke it!"
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I have set up these gadgets two nights in a row. The way these gadgets work is you spread a little bait, I use peanut butter, on a metallic part that is connected to a metal arm that holds in check this spring mechanized noninvasive guillotine arm that actually works more like a catapult from hell, and when working properly, will snap almost in two the neck of the rodent in your kitchen. Sometimes it gets him by the tail and you have to chase the panicked clacking around the house for awhile before your work is done.
But I come up here in the morning from my mouseless, cat-occupied dwelling down the hill and the metal part is licked clean of peanut butter and the trap is unsprung.
I could bring the cat up here (even though the owners don't really want cats up in here) and set him loose hoping he still has a bit of the hunter spirit. Though it may be that the only thing he is hunting at this point in his life is time. The time when I pour his kibbles into a bowl in the morning. Or the time at night when I play kung fu warrior with him.
Alas, this is the nature of what I now consider travail, the unsprung trap, a mild (frankly non-existent) resentment towards the well-fed mouse, so let it all be considered fine and good.
- jimlouis 7-28-2004 4:36 pm
I once retrieved a shivering, beer-drenched mouse from a snowstorm so it could resume it's life of skittering behind the stove. It was my roommate who poured her beer on it, before chasing it outside. Not quite as mean as a cat, but close.
- sally mckay 7-29-2004 3:30 am [add a comment]
when we lived over the odeon, skinny went on a mouse killing frenzy the likes of which i hope to never see again. for two nights he set traps and then would lie in wait in our sleeping loft. i'd wake up to see him peering over edge at every click of the trap, then he'd go down, clean it out and reset (peanut butter proving far superior to cheese or chicken). i think he got 15 in one night. it was awful. good luck.
- linda 7-29-2004 5:19 am [add a comment]
cats are 99% deterrence, 1% kill
- bill 7-29-2004 5:55 am [add a comment]
The wife got some organic chocolate bars from a friend and stored them in a cabinet over the fridge. The uninvited mouse could have had all sorts of grains but preferred the chocolate.
The first night , I left the hinged trap unsprung on the floor near where droppings were left. Already nibbled chocolate pieces were glued to the trap with peanut butter. The rodent was lulled into a false confidence with a happy meal. The second night the trap was set. At 2am the clatter of wood on linoleum startled me awake, and as I headed for the kitchen, the other painful, squeaking sound became apparent.
Would I find splattered blood and viscera around the corner from where the ugly mix of sounds were coming?
Oh shit!, what to do with a pinned -down, live and kicking rodent- club him with a hammer? The visualized outcomes poured through my fuzzy brain... THAT'S IT.
I slowly stepped on the brass hinge that held his head tight to the wood with my slippered foot. He squirmed weakly and I realized a little more pressure would quicken his demise. I was completely in control of his death with a firm step, not needing to crush or to gloat. And so it ended, quiet at that hour, under the blaze of florescent lights
I put the body in a paper sack and went out into the mild night air, out into the darker alley where the stinky, composter drum sits, with its' gooey, maggot infested contents. In went the mouse with the rotting vegetation, egg shells and brocolli stems. Live, die, get eaten- you got a better suggestion?
- MaFitz (guest) 7-29-2004 11:25 pm [add a comment]
In spite of NOLA heat this afternoon and no a/c for the Saturn, I dutifully returned some tile-laying tools to J's friend in Chalmette. Progress in The Parish means one-lane reductions on Judge Perez for no apparent reason and a whole lot of whiteness.
Hot 8 trombonist was shot and killed yesterday while driving a stolen truck to a second line gig for a friend in the Treme. Squad cars cornered the truck, officers approached, and he either tried to use the truck to run them over or he was shot like a dog, depends on whether its Capt. DeFillo or his grandmother who's talking. Saturday and Sunday is Satchmofest at the Mint, with brass stage on Esplanade.
Amidst a break in writing from the Jeff. Davis downtown view, here's an [ir]relevant take on cats and mice: "According to the anthropologist Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, 'Cats may be assuming the role of educator when they bring prey indoors to their human owners. . . . A mother cat starts teaching her kittens from the moment they start following her. . . . Later she gives them hands-on practice by flipping [wounded] prey back to their nests or dens so that their homebound kittens can practice, especially if the prey is of manageable size. So perhaps cats who release living prey in our houses are trying to give us some practice, to hone our hunting skills.'"
Any interest in me making use of your NOLA voter registration for the September local/state elections? I'd reimburse your postage for absentee vote. Speaking of which, your video collection took in $45 for a bathroom renovation fund at a recent yard sale.
- RL (guest) 8-05-2004 12:58 am [add a comment]
My cat 'n mouse story follows. Pardon if I've shared it before in this forum. Siblings Widget and Yossarian we about a year old. Yoyo's litter was about 5 weeks old. (I suspected the neighborhood orange tom, because one of the kittens was orange.)
I had a mouse inside the cabinets, and wasn't sure what to do until I remembered, "Hey, I gots cats!" Widget went in first, snagged the little mouse, took it into the corner, and started playing volley mouse. He tossed it in the air, batted it about, grabbed it with his mouth, tossed it in the air again, etc. Yoyo and the kittens gathered to watch. Yoyo got a shot at the mouse, clamped her mouth over it's head, and strangled it. Very simple, very efficient, very dead.
Yoyo dropped it, and let the kittens examine it. Widgers batted at the mouse a couple of times and was just heartbroken. "That was the coolest toy ever, and you broke it!"
- mark 8-05-2004 4:01 am [add a comment]