I love your white-footed mouse! It inspired me to upload a video of an island deer mouse (a congener) climbing a cholla to reach an apple core that I had put there for that purpose. Once I figured out that mice lived under this cholla next to our camp (given away by an island fox circling the cholla to stalk them at dusk on a couple occasions), I would put the core from my lunch apple up high on the cholla every day for evening entertainment (my colleague put one too high and it got taken by a raven).
Three years later, after a particularly rainy winter, the island was so overrun with deer mice that they were scurrying across the trails in front of us midday as we walked. That summer trip reminded me of the mouse scenes from Never Cry Wolf ...
I had no idea mice would eat chocolate. I always assumed their tastes ran to the savory. In my defense—cheese in traps a pizza rat reinforced this assumption.
And the drumming. Oh my heart. Maybe they’re having a little mousy drum circle.
The cousins to the country mouse, the city mouse are BOLD. Living in various NYC apartments, you certainly learn to live with them, they're just there ... always. Like phantoms in the shadows, skirting around the floors, flying up a curtain. Once, after zoning out watching TV, I discovered two big, clear tooth marks in a Hershey kiss that was left at my elbow that a mouse was apparently gnawing on during the show (did it not like the show, me, non-Belgian chocolate??). Unless, you have a cat ... never did we have a mouse issue with the great hunter, Liono. We only ever saw a mouse at that apt. if it was so unlucky as to become Liono's toy, trapped in a bathtub. Liono was surely proud. Prouder still, to leave just a tail ... as a gift to us and as a warning to its prior owner's friends.
I have a long and complicated relationship with rodents but you've made me think again. Your art work and words are a high point of my week. My grandmother communed with a deer mouse every morning one summer when she got up to get her tea at dawn.
I have a great many mouse stories. Unfortunately, very few of them are about cute creatures and a happy ending. Three, though, anyway: in the late 1950s I was a lieutenant in the British army briefly (national service) and I killed so many mice (sorry) in my bedroom of the officers' mess that I was voted Rodent Officer of the barracks. More recently, when I cleaned out one of many bird boxes for the winter, a family of mice jumped out at me, clambering over my neck and shoulders and one disappearing down my shirt. Between these two memories was a job incident. I was on the phone interviewing someone who had applied to be my assistant. We were both at home and I was in flip-flops. A mouse was walking across the room towards me. I described the situation to the interviewee right up to the moment when it came in range of my feet. The end.
From Alex in San Diego:
I love your white-footed mouse! It inspired me to upload a video of an island deer mouse (a congener) climbing a cholla to reach an apple core that I had put there for that purpose. Once I figured out that mice lived under this cholla next to our camp (given away by an island fox circling the cholla to stalk them at dusk on a couple occasions), I would put the core from my lunch apple up high on the cholla every day for evening entertainment (my colleague put one too high and it got taken by a raven).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbypTm4mQOw
Three years later, after a particularly rainy winter, the island was so overrun with deer mice that they were scurrying across the trails in front of us midday as we walked. That summer trip reminded me of the mouse scenes from Never Cry Wolf ...
I had no idea mice would eat chocolate. I always assumed their tastes ran to the savory. In my defense—cheese in traps a pizza rat reinforced this assumption.
And the drumming. Oh my heart. Maybe they’re having a little mousy drum circle.
The cousins to the country mouse, the city mouse are BOLD. Living in various NYC apartments, you certainly learn to live with them, they're just there ... always. Like phantoms in the shadows, skirting around the floors, flying up a curtain. Once, after zoning out watching TV, I discovered two big, clear tooth marks in a Hershey kiss that was left at my elbow that a mouse was apparently gnawing on during the show (did it not like the show, me, non-Belgian chocolate??). Unless, you have a cat ... never did we have a mouse issue with the great hunter, Liono. We only ever saw a mouse at that apt. if it was so unlucky as to become Liono's toy, trapped in a bathtub. Liono was surely proud. Prouder still, to leave just a tail ... as a gift to us and as a warning to its prior owner's friends.
I have a long and complicated relationship with rodents but you've made me think again. Your art work and words are a high point of my week. My grandmother communed with a deer mouse every morning one summer when she got up to get her tea at dawn.
The drumming!!
A "heartbeat of a mouse"! I love it & I love the painting. Its little feet...
I have a great many mouse stories. Unfortunately, very few of them are about cute creatures and a happy ending. Three, though, anyway: in the late 1950s I was a lieutenant in the British army briefly (national service) and I killed so many mice (sorry) in my bedroom of the officers' mess that I was voted Rodent Officer of the barracks. More recently, when I cleaned out one of many bird boxes for the winter, a family of mice jumped out at me, clambering over my neck and shoulders and one disappearing down my shirt. Between these two memories was a job incident. I was on the phone interviewing someone who had applied to be my assistant. We were both at home and I was in flip-flops. A mouse was walking across the room towards me. I described the situation to the interviewee right up to the moment when it came in range of my feet. The end.