Eviction Notice

Dear Occupant:
You are hereby being served with an eviction notice. You are no longer welcome in our gas barbeque grill, that which you have been calling home since sometime after Sunday evening as well as some time before then as well. Your nest, a cozy combination of maple tree seeds, leaves and dryer lint, cannot stay in its present location as it is highly flammable and therefore presents a danger to all.

Please vacate the premises immediately. Drastic measures will have to be taken if you do not comply.

Sincerely,
The Management

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I was driving home from DJ's daycare when I received the following text message from Steve:
"I have to serve another eviction notice."

When I got in the door, I handed DJ to Steve, grabbed the camera, and we went out to the grill. Steve pointed to the corner in which the nest would be, and slowly opened the grill top. The mouse had abandoned ship but the nest was most certainly there.
Apparently, when Steve had opened the grill top the first time, the mouse was sitting in its nest, and looked up at Steve as if to say, "Whaaaaaat???" That's when I got the text message.

Suddenly Steve says, "Oh! There it is!" Sure enough, the mouse was running along in the top of the grill. That little stinker can jump and it's quick!!! DJ was watching the mouse as well.





I went inside and got the dogs. I picked up Napoleon and showed him the mouse. Instantly, Napoleon's ears perked to attention, and he watched that mouse's movement like a hawk. I put Napoleon down so that I could take DJ from Steve so that Steve could... well... prepare dinner.

Steve had gone to get something with which to catch the mouse, and valiantly attempted to catch the little sucker to take him out into a field somewhere, but the little bugger got away. Unfortunately, Napoleon didn't see the mouse get away to chase it. Then Steve had to eliminate the nest (again). And then run the grill at max heat for 20 minutes to kill off any "mouse" germs (again).

As I had posted earlier in the week, Steve had evicted the mouse (we assume the same one) on Saturday night. We grilled on Sunday, but we didn't grill until tonight (Thursday). So that little mouse was quite industrious in rebuilding its nest!!

Let me toss this out there though, too... On Monday, when I started the dryer for the first of 5 loads of laundry, I heard what sounded like pebbles in the dryer piping. With the mouse having returned to our grill, I can only assume that what I heard was the mouse in the piping...

Fantastic.

So now we have to figure out how to keep the mouse from both our dryer vent AND our grill. We're hoping that if we grill more frequently than twice a week, eventually we'll scare it away. But will that really work?! Guess we'll have to just see.

Ah, country living... it certainly has its adventures!