When the cat's away....

Posted by Rosie

...the mice will play.

Well technically the cat was here (just not in the house) and the mice were in fact shrews and rather than playing they were munching though everything and anything in the food cupboard that they could get their teeth into. Pumpkin seeds, a tetrapak of coconut milk and a bag of cornflour (nearly empty) I could cope with. A small carton of long life cream and a packet of yeast I found strange and at least they had left the large carton of cream alone. BUT a packet of my chocolate chips was a nibble too far. That meant war. So I spent an hour or so rearranging the food cupboard getting everything into rodent-proof containers whilst Simon built a cover for the pipes at the back of the cupboard to hopefully stop them getting in there. Then the mousetraps were primed.

One day later. The cupboard appears to be rodent free but in anger something has attacked the contents of the recycling basket under the sink. A plastic milk bottle has been eaten into and the tetrapaks that had contained the cream and coconut milk have been totally shredded. Mousetrap number one was sprung but the bait was still there. Mousetrap number two had no bait and was unsprung. Mousetrap number three - Success. One rather small and very dead shrew.

Now, bearing in mind the carnage that was the recycling basket, that was either one very hungry shrew or, much more likely, he (or she) was not operating alone. Anyway more traps are set and the cat is being allowed to stay in overnight.

Mind you - I don't blame the shrews for coming inside. Temperatures have been as low as -7 degrees over the last week and today they never rose above freezing point. The pond has thick enough ice to take Simon's weight and I'm having to rely on veg from the freezer as my fresh stuff is frozen solid in the ground. But at least with the ground solid, mud is but a distant memory and the scenery is wonderful. Would I swap all this for a 3 bed semi just outside Dartford? What do you think?