MOTHER MOUSE IN THE BACK YARD!

10/08/07

I have to tell you that anytime I come in the house and say to my husband, "Guess what happened?" He says, "I am afraid to ask!" That is exactly what he said on Saturday evening.Anna, Katie, Chad and Lindsey came home from Zelienople this weekend so we could all attend Pioneer Days in Perryopolis. Katie had promised to clip Jezebel's toenails which she did and that made me very happy. Anna had to make the 74 mile trip back to her place with Katie so that they could pick up the black and white dress from the mall that Katie is wearing to a school dance on the 13th of October.Leaving Chad and Lindsey to stay overnight while they were gone, the kids went out in the back yard to play with Jezebel. I went outside with them and decided to go off the "back porch" and sit on a chair in the yard.Probably one minute after I sat down some kind of critter about 7 inches long was brown and gray, brown furry legs and looked as though it had something in it's mouth ran so fast under my feet and through the yard into the safety of the old flower pot that was sitting upside down on the brick wall.I yelled for Chad and Lindsey to come see what this could be! I went down over the yard to the front of the brick wall thinking whatever it was would come out from under the flower pot for us to see. Chad ran to underneath my chair and said, "Grandma!, come look at this mouse!" Sure enough there was the teeniest mouse with huge white paws looking too big for it's body right there under my chair. Chad ran downstairs for the dust pan and I got my feather duster off the porch. I wanted to put it where ever it's mother went. I know....sounds goofy to protect a pest,...I do not want them in my house.I can see why these little animals can get in to a house very quickly when the doors are left open. This little two inch long mouse could almost climb up the porch steps. He could really move! We got him in the dustpan and over to the wall where he jumped off the wall into the grass and made his way through the yard to the apple tree and brush patch.I told the kids that he probably would not survive without his mother although he looked pretty qualified for such a tiny mouse. I can not figure what the mother would look like in brown and gray fur. She must have been carrying all her babies on her back and she had something in her mouth. That coloring is just not your everyday mouse or rat from here in Southwestern Pennsylvania. My sister said that maybe someone lost a pet.My husband still said, "I am afraid to ask!"