there's a mouse in the bed?!?!?!!?

one of our cats, barrel, is an awesome mouser.

when we were still back in the city, and our friends were taking care of the Manor, they told us that every time they came up to the Manor, there was evidence of mice. since we landed in December 2010 - we haven't seen a single mouse nor any mouse activity. that's because we have 2 cats - one who is useless in the mousing department (named noodle. but he is a good frogger!), but then there is barrel - awesome supreme mouser!!!

back in the city he would catch, and bring home, countless numbers of field mice and voles. we managed to save almost all of them. he didn't kill them - just took them home! ick! but since he has been here he doesn't bring mice home anymore. and that's a good thing! anyway, when he was catching them and bringing them home, we always knew. if the mouse or vole had a chance, they would hide under the couch or a piece of furniture and barrel would not move for hours. then we would realize that there was a mouse or vole under the couch. then we would spend several hours moving furniture, scrambling after the little mouse or vole to save it.

this morning we woke up and barrel was at the end of my side of the bed staring at the bottom of the dresser. we both kind of looked at each other and said "oh no". we got up and normally barrel would come running for his breakfast. nope, still staring and guarding. we knew what we were up against! jambaloney got the flashlight and i took barrel into the kitchen. jambaloney moved the dresser and searched for a good 20 minutes. then he came out and said that he couldn't find it. barrel ran right back into the bedroom and starting making his funny little meows. we followed him saying "what is it barrel? show us". he was meowing something fierce and jumped up on jambaloney's side of the bed. then he started digging under the blankets. jambaloney grabbed one side of the blanket and i grabbed the other - and sure enough a little mouse scuttled from under the blanket and ran to the top of my mattress, which was a little away from the wall, and scurried down and behind.

you will remember that we built a platform bed that is 7ft X 9ft. it goes from one side of the room to the other. and it has all of the compartments for storage underneath it. you can see pics of it here. well anyway, that mouse is somewhere under the bed at this point. oh man!

so we closed the door to our bedroom, opened the window in our bedroom and are hoping that the little guy will smell the fresh air and make a break for it. there is a shelf outside on our plastic enclosed porch right by our window. we put some bird seed, cat food and a little plate of water. we hope he will smell the food and go to it and then make a break for it. we also propped open both cat doors so that he can make a break for it. we believe that he is a field mouse and really hope that he makes a break for it!

we are going to wait until later this afternoon to go in and start tearing the bed apart. just to give him a chance to make a break for it! ugh. the last thing in the world i wanted to see this morning - a mouse in my bed! i won't be getting back into that bed until the entire room has been searched.