Weekly Chat (Non-Osprey), 1 May 2022

I see that my evil twin is posting repeats of everything I say, again....

We had a very pleasant lunch out - 3 course set Sunday Lunch. We both had a sliced melon, followed by roast lamb. Then my OH enjoyed apple & raspberry crumble, and I had raspberry cheesecake which was brought with a huge scoop of icecream - I struggled to finish but then spent the afternoon sitting down!!

I'm so very happy to see that OG is home! OG: I hope every day is a big improvement in your quality of life. Sending you strength and best wishes! My best to Eagle-Eye, too.

OG – So pleased you are home. Take things easy and recover slowly but surely {{{HUGS}}} Maybe EE & J can take things easier too.

I have been reading all your posts and may reply this year, next year, sometime. . .

Continuing mouse saga: To refresh – mouse in kitchen cupboard ate peanut butter without setting off basic traps. Humane traps snapped shut at the slightest, without a mouse inside of course. Thursday - I bought mouse bait from supermarket, Friday morn, no tooth marks, it had not been touched. So I carved off a few “crumbs” with garden knife. After another sleepless night hearing chewing noises, I see on Saturday morn, all eaten. We were hopeful until 12.15 am Sunday morn when s/he recovered and started chewing chipboard again. I went to hardware store to fetch “kills in one day” bait. Yeah right, Monday morn, not touched, but very little chewing activity overnight, so we believe s/he is probably feeling ill.

I decide to remove & wash some casserole dishes from top shelf (s/he has been living on bottom shelf). Suddenly I see a flash of grey on upper shelf; very much alive and fast. I slam door and call Emergency Services ie s-i-l. Poor chap has had a week off work for camping holiday, returned to 450 work emails and now the in-laws have a problem. Luckily he had a work visit to nearby suburb today, visited us (lunch hour). He brought 2 different traps & another bait which he distributed. We were standing in kitchen thanking him when SNAP! He caught a mouse! I already had a grave dug in garden. S-i-l suggests waiting 2-3 days as he believes there are more mice. . .

Other s-i-l tested positive to covid on Friday, only mild illness. Since close contact quarantine rules were removed at weekend, Dau#1 is able to return to teaching today. G-son is recovering.

Good Morning. Pleased to say that it finally stopped raining, although on contacting Sue back in Cheshire, we are disappointed to hear that it's not hardly rained at all, at home: our garden is parched.

AQ -- What a Mouse Tale -- there is hardly ever only one mouse, so I would expect several more...... Hope you can get rid of them soon.

Hope that OG is now settling in at home and will soon be feeling more herself again.

LINDA - You wrote "there is hardly ever only one mouse, so I would expect several more......"

I already feel like crawling away and bawling my eyes out.

AQ - I fear it is true that there is always more than one mouse. Having them in my kitchen cupboards would really make me shudder. I sympathise. A few years ago I had mice in my garage (they had found where I keep the bird food) I was tolerating them until I discovered that they had nibbled right through my golf bag and chewed a hole in my brand new waterproof jacket!!!! They had to go then!! I bought 2 standard mouse traps and baited them with sunflower hearts. I have to tell you that in the end I caught 10!!! Living on my own I had to dispose of them. It was sad really as they were cute little field mice. I have now bought a plug in deterrent which seems to work. When I have my hearing aid in I can hear that it emits a high pitched sound. Presumably the mice don’t like that.
I now have a problem with ants in my kitchen!!! Only little ones but they were crawling all over the floor when I got up to make a cup of tea in the early hours. Like you with the mice AQ I now have to try to track down where they are getting in. By the way, this morning in the light, they had all disappeared!

Rusty - Aarrgghh for the ants. Some years ago I had the same problem. They were crawling up the inside and outside of one of the kitchen cupboard doors. I sprayed the cupboard and the floor - and the threshold of the kitchen door - with a garden ant spray, and haven't seen another once since. I am really careful about not leaving any food out, or even crumbs, because I can't stand spiders and do everything I can to make it an unpleasant and unproductive area for them. Still get the odd spider - but no more ants!

Hello to everyone else. I'm using the Bank Holiday to sort out all sorts of things that have been - ahem - ignored for far too long. Hoping to feel smug by the end of the day, but haven't reached that stage yet ...

Mice? Ants? We had a rat infestation in the neighborhood a couple of years ago but it went away after our neighbor had some major pruning done on a huge tree where they'd set up a colony. Yuk. We had them after the bird food in our garage too and they gnawed their way through the lids of two sturdy plastic containers. I used a trap that delivers an electric shock and caught two in the first 12 hours. At that point we stopped leaving the birdfeeders out all night. All sorted in the end. Now we have the first hints of gophers in the groundcover on the parkway - I used a gopher hawk and caught one; had to dispose of it and felt so bad (after all, the furry little critter was just living its life...) and won't use it again. Am considering taking out groundcover and putting in hardscape. Meanwhile, allergies are awful this spring.

OG: Welcome home and get better soon.

Hallo to everyone else! :-)