Friday, December 30, 2011

Strange Adventures with Animals/Merkwürdige Tierabenteuer

While making biscuits for breakfast this morning, I was interrupted by Charlotte's scream: Julius is vomiting all over my bed.  We quickly put him outside and stripped Charlotte's (and also Miriam's) bed.  We then also noticed we had to clean the rug.  Later Julius came back into the house and chose our basket with place mats as his resting place.





Resuming my baking, I noticed that we had caught a mouse under the kitchen sink in this trap.  I made a mental note to remind my husband later to take the mouse away.  All the children took a peek at the mouse of course; Miriam and Charlotte noticed that it was a very fat and restless mouse.  Well, my husband had some things to do on campus and forgot about the mouse.  The children kept feeding it bird seed, but other than that we left it where it was.  After lunch, I took a short nap.  All of a sudden, Miriam came into the bedroom and informed me that our mouse had given birth to four (we think) mice!!!!  Can you believe it? That's why the mouse was so fat and restless!  We didn't have the heart to take the whole family outside.  We thought that the mouse probably somewhere had already prepared a nest for her little ones.  So we put the trap in a box, opened the trap door and closed the cupboard, hoping that she would take her little ones away.  After a few hours we checked, and they were all gone!  Our plan worked although now we know that soon there will be five mice . . . (Normally we only get one or two mice in the kitchen in the winter.  The rest of the year they are outside somewhere.  Mice are very common around here; all the people we know have some in the winter).  I didn't take any pictures because I didn't want to scare the mice.  

Now it's all quiet.  The little ones are in bed, Jonathan and Charlotte are in the Southern Tier singing during the rosary musical at a church there.  We don't have any plans for tomorrow, so it will be a quiet New Year's Eve. 

Rosary musical a few years ago (Can you find Miriam, Veronika, Jonathan, Charlotte, and even my dh?)  I don't have any new pictures yet./  Rosenkranzmusical vor einigen Jahren.  (Viel Spaß beim Suchen nach Miriam, Veronika, Jonathan, Charlotte und sogar nach meinem lieben Mann).  Ich habe noch kein aktuelles Foto.


Während ich fürs Frühstück Brötchen gabacken habe, wurde ich von Charlottes Schrei unterbrochen: "Julius spuckt auf mein Bett!" Wir haben den Übeltäter schnell nach draußen gesetzt, doch mußten wir das ganze Bett (und auch Miriams) abziehen. Der Flickenteppich hatte leider auch etwas abbekommen und mußte gesäubert werden. (Später hat Julius wieder ganz normal gegessen und in unserem Korb für die Platzdeckchen geschlafen). Daraufhin nahm ich das Backen wieder auf. Es raschelte auf einmal unter der Spüle im Schrank und wir stellten fest, daß unsere Mausefalle eine Maus gefangen hatte. Ich nahm mir vor, meinem Mann zu sagen, daß er die Maus nach dem Frühstück raus setzen sollte. Mein Mann mußte jedoch nach dem Frühstück auf dem Campus etwas erledigen und kam nicht dazu. Also fütterten wir der Maus Vogelfutter und die Kinder betrachteten sie eingehend. Charlotte und Miriam bemerkten, daß sie sehr dick und unruhig sei. Nach dem Mittagessen legte ich mich ein wenig hin, wurde aber bald von Miriam geholt, die erstaunliche Neuigkeiten hatte: Die Maus hatte (wir glauben 4) Mäuschen bekommen!!! Kaum zu glauben, nicht wahr! Was sollten wir nun tun? Wir konnten es nicht übers Herz bringen, die Mäuse draußen auszusetzen. Wir beschlossen, die geöffnete Falle in eine Kiste und die Kiste wieder in den Schrank zu stellen, wo wir die Maus gefangen hatten. Irgendwo mußte die Maus ja ein Nest haben. Und tatsächlich, als wir die Tür wieder nach einigen Stunden öffneten, waren Maus und Mäuschen verschwunden. Nun werden wir allerdings bald mit mindestens fünf Mäusen zu rechnen haben (Mäuse sind hier in den Häusern sehr häufig. Alle unsere Nachbarn haben Mäuse. Wir fangen meistens eine oder zwei jeden Winter; im Sommer haben wir keine Probleme). Ich habe keine Fotos gemacht, weil ich die Mäuse nicht erschrecken wollte.  

Jetzt ist es sehr ruhig. Die kleinen sind im Bett, Jonathan und Charlotte haben ihren ersten Musicalauftritt im Süden (Southern Tier). Für morgen haben wir keine besonderen Pläne. Es wird ein ziemlich ruhiger Tag werden, aber das haben wir von heute auch gedacht.       



12 comments:

  1. Sagt euren Mäusen liebe Grüße von unseren. Die spinnen gerade ganz schön unterm Dach. Und ich habe den leisen Verdacht, dass ab und zu ein paar unsere Wohnung besuchen (auf Raubzug).
    Wünsche euch einen guten Rutsch ins Neue Jahr!!

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  2. Poor Julius... had he been out hunting and something didn't agree with him?

    What a funny tale about the mice, does this mean that they are roaming your house, or have they taken to the wider world?

    We are having a quiet New Year too.

    Hugs to you all

    San and co xx

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  3. Vielleicht sollten wir daraus ein Naturkundeprojekt machen: Vergleiche die südtiroler Maus mit der neuenglischen Maus! Unsere Mäuse bleiben Gott sei Dank nur unter der Spüle im Schrank und hoffen auf ein paar Krümel (dort steht unser Küchenmüll). Woanders sehen wir sie meistens nicht.

    Auch Euch ein schönes neues Jahr. Du hast ein schönes Bild gemalt.

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  4. San, we think he eats the Christmas tree at night. Twice in a row he has thrown up in the morning now.

    No, the mice are not in the house, but somewhere outside or under our deck. They only come in (I don't know how) under the sink cupboard. They can't go anywhere from there, except back outside. Once it gets warmer they are gone. (If they were in the house, Julius would get them. He's a good hunter).

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  5. hello eva! our cats madeline and hermione have been eating the christmas tree! they are driving me nuts! i clean little vomit spots off of the rug at least once a day. (sigh). well, greg has been doing it this past week. we just returned home from a visit to my mom and dad's house.

    oh my! i can't believe your mouse situation. how sweet, but also how worrisome! we adopted xena many years ago because we had a terrible mouse problem in the ground floor apartment we had in brooklyn. she was my hero for keeping all the mice away. thank goodness they just stay in the sink cupboard.

    all is quiet here now. i need to go to sleep also. i think i was able to pick out miriam, veronika and charlotte in the lovely rosary musical picture. happy new year and happy seventh day of christmas :) (actually, it's eighth night now, i think. i haven't been keeping as close note as last year . . )

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  6. Oh, that's good to know that it's not just Julius! We have this spray you can put on things cats are not supposed to go to (I think it's called "Keep off," but I don't like the smell. But maybe we should try it.

    All people around here have cats for the same reason. Too bad that Julius also catches birds, chipmunks, squirrels, and even baby bunnies! Our neighbors have many more mice than we do, but they live in an old farm house. Our house is from the late Fifties. Even when we were in London for six months, our house wasn't overrun by mice.

    That's pretty good that you found Veronika and Miriam (they are in the front with no costumes) and Charlotte (she's wearing a shining blue robe and a golden halo in the second row on the right). Jonathan is next to her, in a brown shepherd garment on the left. Peter is in the very last row, the first person with no head covering, a white garment, and next to "Joseph," who is holding baby Jesus. He was Simeon, but he is not singing this time.

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  7. What an adventure! Our cat has been throwing up a lot as well. I've had to clean the living room rug carpet twice - yuck.

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  8. Is yours also eating the Christmas tree, Alexandra?

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  9. Thanks for pointing the others out to me. I see them now. Julius is quite the hunter! Our cats each had a favorite prey. Xena preferred mice, Madeline cockroaches, and Hermione birds. Hermione's preference was the most difficult to deal with. I'm glad I didn't have to worry about her catching bunnies too!

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  10. Cockroaches! That is strange. I wouldn't like that. One time Julius found a bunny's nest and started to play with them. He killed one and brought us two others (still alive)! We rescued them and took them to a lady who takes in animals that can't go back to the wild immediately. We didn't know where Julius had found them so we couldn't take them back. The mother might have not accepted them anyway. Julius knows by now, that we don't like it when he brings us these animals. He always looks very guilty.

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  11. We use a fake tree every year, and this year it was a small pink one that my daughter really wanted, so we indulged her. He doesn't bother the fake tree(and the pink one was quite unnatural looking!), or any of our plants for that matter. He seems to stick to outdoor grass and then throws it up inside, yuck.

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  12. Oh, Julius also does that outside and then he sometimes throws up. I think it's just a special kind of grass that makes him throw up, not the regular lawn grass. I always thought animals knew what they could eat and what not, but maybe not certain cats.

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