October's downsides - Of mice and pears
I said here a few days ago that October was one of the most pleasant months in the Land of Pleasant Living - all mild temperatures, vibrant colors, dry, sunny days and cool, starry nights. Then we had a visitor.
It was a house mouse. His presence in our home was announced last evening by my wife's shrieks. She was at the kitchen table, correcting students' papers when a member of the Mus 
musculus family made a run for it. He emerged from under the basket where we keep cushions for the deck furniture, made a beeline across the kitchen to the stove, and vanished into its dark underbelly.
His bold break, in the glare of a half-dozen kitchen lights, was a mistake. Darkness is the mouse's friend. He forgot that.
Meanwhile, alerted by my wife's shrieks, now coming in rapid succession, I scampered down the stairs, expecting to find her impaled on a kitchen implement and bleeding out.
"There's a mouse!!" she gasped. Where? I asked.
"The stove! Under the stove!," says she. What do you want me to do?
"Get the broom!," says she. And what? Sweep him out the door? He may not go along with that plan.
So we pause to think. I have an unused snap-type mouse trap in the basement. We'll put a little treat in it, set it out overnight and see what happens. It's a good plan, she agrees, except for the part where we go to bed with a mouse loose in the house. But I retrieve the trap, we load it with a dab of peanut butter on a cracker, cock the snap mechanism, and set it down in front of the kickboard below the sink.
The arrival of the first cold nights this week - in the upper 30s out on the WeatherDeck a few mornings ago - means it's time for Mus musculus to find warmer places to spend the winter. Those that have enjoyed the bounty of the gardens and woods around our house are beginning to look for a cozy, centrally heated interior to share (preferably with plenty of crumbs to eat and pantries to explore).
It's one of those less-pleasant autumn events that we have come to expect in our neighborhood. A few years back the mice found a gap in our eaves and set up housekeeping in the attic. We would lie in bed and listen to them scratching and gnawing up there, and determined to wipe them out.
So we set out some mouse poison and a couple of snap traps. In a couple of days, the attic was quiet, and the trap was occupied. I cleaned up, and sealed up the openings I could reach.
Autumn can be messy like that. We also have a Bradford pear tree. It was planted in the front 
yard by the builder because it was cheap and fast-growing. In 11 years it has grown from a spindly stick to a gangly giant, nearly as tall as the house.
In its maturity, the Bradford has become a prodigious producer. Today it is loaded with thousands of tiny pears, about the size of grapes. The birds and squirrels love them. And they have drawn as many as four hungry deer at a time, in broad daylight. But the little globes drop and cover the walks with a squishy mess. They stain the concrete, get caught in our shoes and track into the house.
The tree also stinks when it flowers in the spring. And it's fragile, threatening to split in a storm and drop large branches onto parked cars. It has to go. We plan to have it chopped down, ground up and replaced sometime this fall.
I hate to lose the cooling shade it throws across the house in summer. And in recent days I have been captivated by a large spider web, spun between our Bradford and the neighbor's identical tree, and backlit by the morning sun. But the tree has strung out our tolerance to the limit.
So had our mouse. While I showered this morning, my wife ventured downstairs for a peek at the trap. She returned to announce, with a mix of revulsion and relief, "There is a tail sticking out of the trap."
And so the hunt is ended. Twelve hours. Not bad.
Comments
You must have had a country mouse. No city mouse would have been caught in such a simple scheme.
FR: Who can resist Jiffy?
Posted by: Joseph James | October 9, 2008 2:55 PM
Us too. A 14 year old bradford pear died on me this summer - they said it was a fungus, perhaps from the heavy rains of spring. Replaced it with adorable river birch - very pretty. Too expensive for an imploding stock market, but at least a dead tall Bradford won't fall on my house in a snowstorm. good luck with yours!!
Posted by: Lynne | October 9, 2008 3:32 PM
Ahh Autumn .. Its exciting times here for my Kitties who take up a all night vigil in the kitchen looking for lil squeaker.
I average about 5 mice caught by them in autumn. Such is our lot in RowHouse Ville here in the city. Our problems are our neighbors and vs versa.
At least the Kitties finally earn their keep around here. They do try and steal it back stealing warmth from us Humans in bed all winter.
Posted by: HappyRaven | October 9, 2008 7:39 PM
I have a 100 foot tall Poplar in my townhouse's tiny little backyard you can have. If you can remove/haul it, you can have it!
Posted by: Sam | October 10, 2008 1:04 PM
I live in an apartment on the third floor and have lived there for three years no problem until a new neighbor moves in beneath me and here comes something running across my floor. My uncle who works for Terminx says that the snap traps work the best better then anything. Put some peanut butter on there and your good to go in a few days the little sucker is gone! Also placing the D-Con poison in the little black box helps to he said because they eat it and die almost instantly. But you cant have it around young children or house pets so its best to keep it outside where you beleive they come in or like you did place it in the attic. I've been told that the scent of peppermint works too but who knows!
Posted by: Jeanna | October 10, 2008 2:25 PM
he's certainly a desperate looking fellow. hope you guys are all allright.
FR: We are recovering, thank you.
Posted by: Ronald Mardeusz | October 10, 2008 3:42 PM
Frank--Bradford pear is also considered an invasive species--spread by the birds and squirrels you mentioned. It is a problem in portions of Patuxent Refuge where I work. The website for the maryland native plant society has suggestions for native alternatives. Thanks much for your blog. I enjoy it.
Posted by: Pam | October 10, 2008 5:14 PM