Eek...There's A Mouse!

I kid you not. A mouse. A tiny trembling, troubled creature rushing hither and yon. In our garage. What's in doing in there? How did it enter? What's to become of it? What can we do about it?

It's awfully cold out. Cold too in our garage. There have been springs when we've discovered the inside of a boot full of burlap strings, gnawed off larger pieces of unused burlap usually used to cover vulnerable trees in the garden, to shelter them from winter sun and wind. A tiny burlap nest that obviously held a wee hairy creature in its snug embrace over winter.

I used to find bits of burlap string made into nests burrowed deep under the snow in the front garden too. Usually close by a plant. The plant roots well utilized for nutrition throughout the long cold winter; the plant to be tossed come spring. Small price to pay for the life of a little animal.

We've a large, heavy concrete urn positioned at the top of the rock garden which runs alongside the length of our house, down the left-hand side. The urn and its column stand upon a large circular piece of concrete, under which mice obviously burrow, as we have seen them from time to time in the spring and summer, scurrying in and out when the area has been disturbed.

Sometimes, in the summer, if I happen to be looking out the dining room windows at night, one part of which overlooks the garden, the other the front porch, there will be the active nocturnal peregrinations of a tiny mouse, leaping from the garden bed onto the porch, then back again in a circumnavigation of its little kingdom.

We've witnessed also, the acrobatic demonstrations of other mice alongside the driveway, running about when disturbed in the garden and up, up, leaping right up into the downdrain that leads up onto the roof over the garage. Mice, they're everywhere! Our little dogs are intrigued by their ghostly transitory presence, sniff vigorously where the mice once were, fascinated by the presence of these little creatures.

And here we've got one in the garage! First time we witnessed its scurrying about the large ceramic garden pots we've got assembled in the garage for protection from winter blasts, we thought he must surely have blundered in error into the garage. Likely when we hadn't closed the garage door completely on our last foray into the ravine. So we lifted the door slightly, just enough to permit a tiny creature exit.

But, surprise! He's no dummy, wants to stay where he has guaranteed winter protection. Look here, the oregano and the parsley growing in the rectangular pot are bright green yet and obviously happy where they spent the winter before as well. Could the herbs be providing sustenance for the mouse? He's welcome to that and more. Should he choose to stay.

Might have to make other titbits available to him as well, before he nests up for good and begins his long hibernation.