Mice have always been a funny part of my life......first job I had out of college was my firmware engineering job......& I spend a lot of late nights working on the project......late nights in a quiet building with no one there except for the mice......never forget the one time I must have dropped a cheeto snack I had been eating earlier that day.....because around 1am, I heard what sounded like this amplified cruunnnnncccchhhhh....crrrrruuuunnnnccchhhhhing noise under my desk.....I looked under there & there was this little mouse sitting there with the piece of cheeto in it's paws......eating it's midnight snack. I saw it & it saw me & it took off for behind the door......then ran down the hallway & into the lunch room.

I moved to another project & another building......one day I had some government secret documents in my hands I was walking over to another engineer's office to discuss a part of the project ( I was one of the only women engineers working in a mostly male environment)......I got distracted when all the guys were crowded around this office complaining about this mouse that had run in there behind their book case. I put my documents down (not thinking) & picked up a trash can that was lined with a plastic trash bag......I went over to the book case & told the guy on the other end to chase the mouse....It ran straight for my trash can, & grabbed the bag & caught the mouse. Headed immediately out the door & down the road a ways & dumped the mouse out in the vine covered fencing. I'm sure the mouse was back the next day....but for that day....lol.....I was the hero. I came back in the building & one of the bosses grabbed the bag from me....he went over to his secretarie's desk, took the bag & shook if right over her desk yelling "Mouse".....she screamed.....but luckily there was NO MOUSE.

The mice in the building were more than we could ever handle even with traps.......I had one that loved to frequent my desk drawer until I quit keeping crackers in there.

After I lost my career......psychologist/pdoc suggested I get involved in something I have always loved.....No, not mice....horses.......while out at the ranch, my dog Leo...noticed this mouse close to the pipe railing that they used for the corals.....he saw the mouse & the mouse saw him & ran to get inside one of the pipes.......Leo sniffing around trying to get the mouse finally gave up....but he was definitely wanting to give it a good chase.......forward time by a few hours.....we were back at that same area of the ranch.....there was the little mouse outside.....of the pipe railing....it saw Leo again & Leo saw it....only this time, the mouse ran straight for Leo....& Leo got this panic look in his eye, & took off in the other direction......ah, what a big brave dog I have.

Since then, I have moved 2100 miles away.....to get away from my bad marriage that was feeding the depression & anxiety.....to my own farm out in the country of KY....with LOTS of mice & some even more gigantic rodent looking characters....the opossum (at least they don't get inside of my house like the mice do).

When I first moved here...every night I could hear the mice playing around in my attic (I have a 2 story home + an attic & a basement). With my kind heartedness, I couldn't bear to kill a mouse, so I started off with the humane traps....I caught sever of the smaller mice. A neighbor had started to build a couple of houses that he never finished....so they were good dumping places for the mice I caught...especially the house that was on the other side of the creek. Only problem the humane trap didn't work for the bigger mice because they could keep their rear out the back & stretch out far enough to get the bait. That one large mouse, Leo & I both chased it around my dining room for several hours before I got it to run into the plastic container I normally use for dog food....was surprised at how big that little mouse actually was....he had been eating good in my kitchen for some time by then.

I finally ended up getting so overrun by mice & couldn't catch them fast enough that I decided to get the bait that you set out....they eat & go off, never to be seen again. Last winter I had brought all my plants inside for the winter & this one mouse decided that my potted plants were a place for him to dig into.....sat the mouse bait out there for it & it disappeared.

I could write a novel about all my mice experiences I've had.....& some other miscellaneous experiences Leo has had with other rodent like animals here....like the mole he was chasing that bit his foot...lol.....glad it wasn't a mouse though.

Yep, they are a challenge to catch....for being so small, they are cunning & deviceive ....when it comes to their own survival. How something with such a small brain can out smart those of us with the larger brain......

Always a challenge that I'm sure I will continue to go through every year I live here