Eek!

Since the weather has just gotten colder, we’ve been having a bit of a turf battle in our kitchen between us and some field mice who would like to become house mice for the winter.  This is not okay with us for multiple obvious reasons, so the battle has begun.  So far, we have caught one mouse in a humane trap, but either we didn’t release it far enough away from our house, or it was part of a couple, because we still have at least one mouse visiting our kitchen at night and ruining our ripening pears.

Now you are probably wondering, hey, what about your two cats?  Shouldn’t they be earning their keep by catching the mice?  Shouldn’t they, indeed.  It turns out that whereas Plum and Posy will interestedly sit in front of the hole by the side of the stove which the mice use to enter the kitchen, they will only do so until it is time for them to nap elsewhere.  And it is time for them to nap elsewhere most of the time.

I’m not being completely fair to Plum, who did start knocking all and sundry off the counter late one night in an effort to keep the mouse from reaching our bowl of pears.  And then he did alert Sean when the mouse had gone into the humane trap.  So he is trying, somewhat.  And also in Plum’s defense, we give him his meds at night, so it is hard for him to stay all vengeancy when the clomicalm is making him happy.  I’m not sure what Posy’s excuse is, except that while the mouse is out and about, Posy is usually upstairs with me, purring and giving me a nice cuddle.

Meanwhile, Owen has started calling both cats Posy (or “Popey”) and it bothers me more than it should.  I keep telling him, when he calls Plum Popey, that the big gray one is Plum!  Popey’s the little cream one who is always sneezing.  But so far to no avail.