More on the Mouse Mystery

Okay, so I had one dead mouse with two holes in him on my tackroom floor. Then I found another dead mouse, this one obviously fell in a Rubbermaid tub, couldn't get out and died. And then there was the shredded horse blanket, the chewed open bag of feed and the strange piles of things I didn't put in strange piles.

I went back to the pound to get the aggressive cat, and the pound was out of cats! They were down to two because it turns out the Charleston pound had a waiting list of 400 people needing cats, so the Columbia pound sent all their cats down there. Well. That's how it ought to work. The two cats the pound had weren't barn-cat types. So I left catless.

I told Paul about this, which I had already done several times but this time it seems that his wife-hearing ear was actually working and he heard me. So he set out two mouse traps, one in the tackroom and one in his shop, which is behind the tack room. He put the traps on top of newspaper to make them easy to .... deal with. 

And we heard laughter in the darkness.

The next day, the tackroom mousetrap was flipped over and empty. And the one in the shop was (insert Jaws music here) GONE! And not only was the mousetrap gone, but so, too, was the newspaper under it.

!!!

How did the thing get the trap and the newspaper? And what kind of thing was it? Is it safe to go down there? Will it eat the horses next?

So today Paul bought some rat poison. We had our usual conversation about what if a rat/mouse ate it, staggered out into the yard, and the dog ate the rat/mouse. I said it could happen. Paul of course said that it wouldn't. it probably won't, but I'd rather get a cat. I'd always rather get a cat.

Except -- what if it ate the cat?

Comments

[Fred]

We had several cats eaten by just such a thing. You may have to level the barn.

[Mumnah]

A shortage of cats? Wow. We could send you some from Canada :)

[Strawberry Lane]

Maybe you'll just happen to get your cat. Seems cats know when they are needed.

Our "MouseTrap" moved into the hay barn when young and became a pro. The mice moved next door, I guess.

He's retired now and sleeps on the couch. That is always part of their plan.