Kittens in the house!?

Begin Mike's thoughts - 

Tsuki saw me in the kitchen window. Hey, that's cute! She's running towards the house.

Wait...

No, no, no, no, NO!

Barn cats! BARN! B-A-R-N!

Now Aria, too!?

And they're in the house. Why do we have more cats in the house?

Herd them, Loki! Herd them outside! Stop licking their butts!

Happy! Don't you have anything to say? Nothing!?

Well...that was close. At least they ran after Carrie to return to the barn.

 I'm going to have to keep my eyes open now that Carrie's seen the kittens get along with Max and Happy...

Several days passed. Shane came home from Camp Cassano and I drove the Volvo to get the nail in it's tire fixed.

Carrie updated her status while I was away.

The one time! The one time!

"I can't believe you responded publicly like that!" Carrie said. "You've never done that before."

"I just learned it a bit ago. Besides, it's a Facebook post."

"But what will people think?" Carrie asked.

"They'll think I don't want more cats in the house," I said. "And they'd be right."

I'm sure it was worth a good laugh for the people who actually know us in person. I don't care what the far peripherals without taking time to know the situation think about it.

Shane loved all the drama and kittens. Plus, Carrie bribed him with a phone.

The kittens were back in the barn before I got home. "They never left the blue mat," Carrie said.

I agreed to barn cats. I wanted dead mice. I realized that there was a chance they may come in at some point.

Just not now.

I'm going to be stubborn on this one. I don't want the barn to become an excuse to get a new cat or two every six months. Especially if it acts as a conveyor belt to the house! I already got swindled into Happy!

I won the last couple of battles, but I'll probably lose the war.

Carrie's already said she thinks the cats should be confined inside to monitor them after they're spayed. Unfortunately, I see her point.

Then Max is 14 years old. She's lived a good long life, but at some point a vacancy will open up. The kittens wouldn't replace Max in Carrie's heart, but they'd be a comfort and distraction while she grieved.

And Carrie is definitely enamored with the kittens. Especially Tsuki. Tsuki really wants to be a lap cat. I swear Carrie melts every time Tsuki runs after her. "She's my little shadow!"

Aria's the more adventurous one. The other night, Carrie squealed from the couch.

We had a visitor.

"She heard me!" Carrie said.

Which was true. Carrie makes a kissing sound to call Loki and the kittens respond, as well. Carrie was calling Loki and Aria started mewing on the other side of the window.

I had a solution.

"I can still see her on the TV," Carrie said.

She was clearly contemplating sleeping with a new kitten.

So I turned off the TV.

I wasn't going to bring in one kitten and leave her sister alone. Plus, a hyper barn-kitten with claws is not a good recipe for sleep.

No, I wanted the barns cats in the barn. They needed to learn how to catch mice. I had seen dead bugs, but no rodents.

Carrie texted me good news before a zoom meeting.

"Aria caught a mouse," she said.

Good cat!

I felt a little bad when I came to the barn an hour later and Aria was still playing with it. I was contemplating a mercy kill, but thankfully Aria decided to eat it.

Excellent. Barn cat working as intended.

Carrie sent me another text later. Tsuki had a mouse this time!

I told Carrie that the kittens can come inside for an hour for each mouse they kill. It'll be heard to keep track if they eat the evidence, but that works right to my liking!

COVID 19 - The Coronavirus: More Barn Happenings

The barn's been busy! 

A couple of people came out to ride Sam to see if they'd be interested in riding him regularly. One woman, Alex, said yes to the horse and she's now riding once a week. She's taking lessons from Ellie. 

I watched part of the first lesson and my takeaway was "champagne hands not piano hands."

Sam was a good sport, because Buddha was running circles around the arena wanting to get in to Ellie! It seems like all of our horses have become fairly used to dogs.

Quick side note - We filled in the erosion chasms around the step.

We filled it with dirt and used the gator to drive back and forth over it to tamp it down.

Not that many people have used it. It's been largely for decoration and marketing.

Some straw and grass seed down went on top. We're hoping that the grass will take root and prevent future erosion better than the gravel dust did.

And the grass certainly seems to be growing. It's sprouting through all the gravel dust Henry's dad laid down for us!

Carrie put Sam in the pasture (muzzle-free) to mow it down overnight. He was thrilled! He couldn't keep eating at one patch before going to sample another. "And I'll have some of this! And some of this! Oh! What about this!?"

Too bad the stinker tore down the cattle gate.

The gate had been tied off to the barn door handles.

Sam wanted Carrie to hurry up when she was making breakfast, so he started to paw at the gate. Somehow, his leg slipped through and it startled him.

He jumped back and took the gate with him. 

Carrie found the gate in the yard and him looking at it (before he saw her and his brain immediately shifted to, "Food?").

You can't finish one project on a farm without another one popping up somewhere.

The neighbor's land has been busy, too. We've seen machinery at work. They started off spraying some sort of herbicide.

It turned everything from green to yellow.

They've come out multiple times and it's not like I can hold a conversation yelling out to someone in a big rig, but I kinda wish I could. I'm curious as to why they do what they do.

I guess you could call us agriculture adjacent.

The barn has been a source of community for Carrie. She's the most introverted in the house yet she has horse people coming and going! 

The farrier was out recently and filled in a gap of Eddie's hoof wall. It was interesting to look at. 

Not all of the community that shows up is welcome.

I found the dead mouse just laying on the floor of the garage. We have a pest control contract where they spray the house for bugs and put out some bait traps, so I assume it died from them.

The three mice I found in a poop bucket were a different story.

It started off with two mice. I noticed them hopping around while doing chores. They couldn't get out and I didn't want to deal with them then. A third mouse showed up to join the party.

"Can we keep them?" Shane asked.

No.

No. No. No.

I moved the bin outside and thought about what I should do. I forgot about them overnight and came back the next morning to find one had gone cannibal. The other two were dead and one was missing much of it's face.

"And that's why we don't want mice."

I never ended up having to do anything. Maybe the cannibal choked on his friend's face, because he was dead a little later.

New Year's Eve Visitors

We had some visitors to make New Year's Eve special! Kim and Ryan drove over from Richmond to see the new house (and dog!).

We met up at the barn before we headed out to the tavern for lunch. They chose to drive the back roads to get here. Kim was happy to report they didn't get trapped behind any tractors or slow-driving country folk on the way over. 

Shane wanted to show off his room (and Pokemon stickers) to Ryan before we headed out. Like me, Ryan said, "That's Mewtwo," only to have Shane correct him, "NO! That's a Mewtwo Y!"

I tried to catch a wild Shane on the way back from lunch. Shane rode with Ryan and Kim. Kim's window was down, but I missed!

I had to hop out of the car, pick it up from a puddle's edge, and slam dunk it in.

"Daaaad!!!!" Shane yelled.

No, we weren't driving. We were parked at the hardware store for an errand. The roads don't have passing lanes, so it's not like I could drive up beside them. Plus, Carrie would have been in the passenger seat and killed me. 

Kim commented that she didn't need a radio while we sat around. Ryan and Shane kept up a steady stream of beat-boxing to keep her 'entertained.'

We gave the official tour of the property when we got back. Heidi pulled up and Carrie peeled off from the group to saddle up herself.

Kim, Ryan, Shane, and I went back to the house and opened presents! I don't know how they find time to shop for as many people as they do, but they manage and they're good at it. Shane got some Harry Potter LEGOs, a HP coding game, and a LEGO Technic car.

He pulled out the wand right away and started to treat it like a weapon. "Say it! Don't spray it, kid!"

There excitement was broken when Max stirred up some excitement of her own. She was stalking some shelves, so I shifted them to see what she was on to.

A mouse shot out. Max caught it.

"Good girl, Max!" I said.

"Let me see! Let me see!" Shane shouted. Kim had the opposite reaction.

I had to stop Shane from racing over to Max. She trotted out of the kitchen and down the hallway with her prize. I started to laugh as she moved to Shane's room. (She was bringing him a present!).

"What!?" Shane yelled. "Noooo!" He ran after and Max dropped the mouse! The mouse skittered into the laundry room and I had to move shoes to help Max zero in on her target again.

I'd hoped she'd kill the mouse, but she was treating it like a prized toy. Stress can kill a mouse and I didn't want it tortured, but I wouldn't cry if it keeled over.

After Max dropped and caught the poor thing multiple times, I pulled out the camera to take a video.

You can tell I got highly distracted at the end. We never had the chance to see if Bucket had hunting instincts. By the time Ryan and I had retrieved her from behind the TV, Max had dropped the mouse and it had run under the fridge.

When the excitement died down, I let Shane show Slime Rancher to Ryan. Shane interjects Slime Rancher into any random conversation, so I figured it would be best to get it out of his system.

With Shane plugged in, that gave Kim, Ryan, and I time to sit down, talk, and play a board game! We learned to play Azul!

That's the temptation with video games and kids. The games can buy you a moment's peace, but if you overuse them...

I pulled the plug shortly after our game. Shane showed Kim his room and ended up wrestling with Ryan and Loki!

Carrie came in from riding and showed Kim Happy-cat while the boys played. (I didn't get this picture pre-approved, so I put it in small until the censors could look at it!)

"We should get a picture before you go," I said. 

Everyone agreed, but not everyone had the same type of picture in mind.

This led to a few tries.

Ryan applied tickling to try and get a smile.

And I guess that's the best we could get out of Shane posing. He stood still, at least.

Amazingly, Kim barely moved even with some wrestling adjacent to her! She knows how to avoid getting blurred out!

I'm glad they visited, because it made New Year's Eve a special memory. We weren't planning on staying up or anything of the like. I would have been happy if they chose to stay the night, but it was not to be!

Shane started working on his new Harry Potter LEGOs right after they left.

I'm going to need to get him working on a thank you note....in 2020!

Vermintide? Vermicide.

The first time we heard a mouse in the garage, we knew it'd be a problem.

The first time we found a mouse in Shane's bathroom trash, we knew the problem was here.

I had wanted to buy traps the first time I heard a little guy. Carrie wasn't so sure. Since I was at work, I never made the time to do it and now this is where we're at. 

I was going to exterminate the first little guy, but Carrie asked for mercy.

She changed her mind the second time a mouse showed up in Shane's trash can.....and then there was a third!

That's where we are.

Unfortunately, our garage has been a land of plenty. We filled up all the trash cans and when we ran out of space, we had to start putting bags out by themselves....bags which mice can burrow into. 

We had hoped Carrie could manage a monthly trip with the cans in the back of the truck, but it hasn't happened. Instead, we have a mound that grows until we fill the horse trailer. 

My daily life is usually booked from 7 AM to 7 PM, so the only time I can help is on weekends. Then the only one who will drive the truck + trailer is Carrie and if she's hurt, tired, or has something going on over the weekend it doesn't get done.

That's how we got here.

And this is what we're doing.

Mouse traps are cheap and plentiful. When a kill is made, I chuck the whole thing away and put out a new trap. We went through the packs we bought at the local hardware store and had to order more from Amazon.

We are avoiding all poisons. We have animals on property and Carrie is opposed to poison in the ecosystem in general. Carrie tried getting some humane, sound devices to discourage visitation, but they seem useless.

I think the mice are getting into the house through gaps in the walls and the flooring. I haven't been able to find any other entryways.

Shane came bolting out of his room one time screaming, "There's a mouse in here!"

Of course, this happened as we were about to go somewhere. I'd sent Shane into his room to grab his coat and he'd come out screaming blood and doom while I stood at the garage door waiting.

The mouse skittered behind his bed frame into a hard to reach place.

Shane's room was a mess of hiding places. He had toys all over for a mouse to hide under in a game of chase. We started to clean up (under protest), but called it quits due to timing.

Shane and I blocked off the obvious escape points and left to do our errands. I figured if the mouse didn't escape, then there were no points of entry in Shane's room itself.

We got home and the mouse was still there.

It turns out Max is a terrible mouser.

It was comic. She'd turn around and the mouse would run behind her. I would move her to try and show her the mouse, she'd turn around and look up at me for a pet, and *skitter skitter* the mouse was gone!

We tried leaving her in the room alone with the mouse and all that happened was a nap.

The mouse got away later. I kept telling Shane to leave it alone and pick up, so that it'd be easier to make a catch. Shane didn't listen and he ended up disturbing the barrier and shooing it into the bathroom. It made it's escape and wasn't seen again.

Unless it's been one of the mice I've found in a trap. There have been plenty of those.