Critters

OK, I am a little embarrassed to share this blog entry, but it is definitely what is on my mind this morning. We have a critter problem and it is driving me insane. We live in Holtville, better known as "Slapout", in the middle of what used to be a cow pasture, so critters should not surprise me, but they still do.

Let me give you some examples of what I deal with on a daily basis. We have lizards outside all around our house. I mean lots of lizards. I can probably count 20 on any given day. Gene says lizards are a good thing because they eat flies, spiders, and other little critters that I do not like. Point taken, but they still get on my nerves. I have a few that have taken up permanent residence around my backdoor and occasionally they will come inside with me when I am unloading groceries or something like that. You should see me chase these things around my kitchen back out the door.

We also have a high population of frogs, little green frogs. The number of frogs would gross you out, so I'll spare you the estimation, but just about every time I drive up in my garage, at night, a run over one. Fun stuff, right?

I now have this big, fuzzy caterpillar, that has claimed my back door rug as its home. It is as big as my thumb and red in color. I have picked it up and put it out in the grass, only to find it back on my rug the next morning. Do these things have brains?

We also have a lot of chipmunks and squirrels. Yesterday, I went out my front door and there were several chipmunks sitting out there having a conversation, and do you know that they didn't scurry away when I opened the door. They looked at me as if to say, "What?" It was raining, so I guess they preferred my dry porch to the wet bushes.

Well, about two weeks ago, I discovered that we have a mouse....a mouse.....yuck! We have been in our home for 10 years and I have never seen a mouse inside this house. I realize that I haven't exactly stayed on top of the cleaning as I did before Gracen's arrival, but come on, I didn't think it was that bad. Anyway, I was rocking Gracen in the wee hours of the night and it ran across her floor. Scared me to death! I screamed, woke up Gracen, and I was so mad, I could have strangled it with my bare hands. The next day we put traps out and waited. We bought the dome shaped traps with the hole in the side. You put cheese or peanut butter on the inside and they go in and the door closes behind them. Can you believe that mouse pooped all around that trap and ON TOP of it (I guess that is what he thought about that), but he never went inside it. Infuriating!!! So next, we moved on the glue traps and we caught it. I cleaned my house, including window sills and base boards and thought we were done with that. Well, last night, I was getting the vacuum cleaner out and another mouse was under it. Gene and I spent 20 minutes chasing that thing with bowls, trying to catch it. No such luck!

I hope this was just a boyfriend/girlfriend pair that moved in and not something more. I really hope there is not an entire family somewhere. Gives me the chills.

Now, every time I hear a noise over the girls' monitors, I envision mice eating their flesh and have to go check on them. I'm not getting much sleep.

Do mice feed on human flesh? Just asking.

Let me know if you have any suggestions for getting rid of these unwanted guests.