A mouse in the house (and how to get rid of it)

Very early this morning I woke to sounds that - for a few wonderful moments - I thought might mean nothing more than an expensive repair to my dishwasher.  There were poppings and scrapings and clinkings, as when metal collides, or glass (which is what made me think: dishwasher, yay!)

Sadly no.  There was a mouse under the stove, and then in the drawer of the stove, and then back under the stove.

Admittedly I did not witness this mouse.  I just recognized the sounds from the days when I had a cat who moonlighted as a pest control expert.  In all the years we lived together, she was only called upon to identify and deter a mouse twice, and I miss her so much right now because she did such an awesome job of letting those unwanted visitors know they would be much happier outside with their own kind.

A flashlight and broom handle are not as cuddly as my cat was

(which is saying something because my cat was super unfriendly)

but they are effective in their way, and the mouse fled without ever making an actual appearance. 

This made it much easier for me to determine that the gap I found behind the stove where its plug goes into the wall must have been the mouse's access point.  more yay!

How to Get Rid of Mice

Apparently one does not want to set out traps or poison for mice.  Apart from the ickiness of this course of action (once in my student years I caught a baby mouse in a 'humane' sticky-goo tray and have never forgotten its piteous cries plus the sight of its mother trying to drag it and the tray back through the hole), it's counterproductive, because the ones that die leave a greater mouse-to-food ratio that encourages increased breeding.

Instead, you want to keep the mice out in the first place. 

1. A cat is good, and I did read that used kitty litter is an effective substitute, but after those last years of feline incontinence I kinda think that mice are preferable.

2. Finding and blocking mouse entry points: essential.  A mouse can squeeze through a space as small as 1/4 inch, so you have to be really picky about what constitutes said point.  When you find likely candidates, stuff them with steel wool, because mice can't chew through that.  Also it would probably stick porcupine-like into their gums if they tried, judging by the little stabs and hurties you get from stuffing steel wool into a hole.

3. Making the mouse smell peppermint?  Total turnoff.  Word is, mice hate that stuff, and if you drop some essential oil of mint onto a cotton ball and leave it around where the mice loiter while waiting to make a dash for your pantry, they will opt to go loiter at your unwitting neighbour's house instead. Here's a tip: don't throw more than a couple of drops on.  The stuff is strong and guess what?  I don't like the way peppermint oil smells either, not after getting overenthusiastic and putting about 10 drops on.

And... did it work?

I guess I'll find out tonight.  And if I update the Diary with news of a new cat in residence, you will totally know why.

Sewing some snack bags

It occurred to me at the grocery store one day last year that I was buying a lot of plastic baggies for portable snacks, and I wasn't reusing them nearly enough.  I wondered whether I could possibly sew something for the job - and a very brief hunt online told me not only that I could, but that many, many others have done it already.

I decided on the fold-over-top technique advocated at Angry Chicken and started hunting for organic fabric, because I'd read that some fabrics are treated with things to preserve them from damage during transport that you do not want on your food.  Alewives to the rescue:

When this fabric arrived I worried that the half yard I'd bought of each might not be enough, so I stopped at Stitch in Jordan, Ontario during my next Niagara trip and found that Jocelyn stocks organic fabrics as well.  Hers are hand-dyed and hand-painted in India and have a very nice floppy quality that contrasts with Alewives' crispiness:

Don't you love how you can see where the artist adjusted the painting tool?

I bought three fat quarters that sort of coordinated, and dressed up some bags with contrasting fabric until I came to my senses (they are only for snacks, and I do not have unlimited time):

And then I got to work on my half-yards...

Which resulted in 27 bags, including the larger drawstring one, all stitched in double rows and the edges pinked because my old Singer has no zigzag function.

That's a lot of snacks.

Fire alarm

Yesterday I came in from an exciting trip to the garage to find the house was filled with the smell of burning plastic.

Horrors!

In these situations, I always panic about the source of the problem. Did I leave a giant plastic storage tub on the stove again? (don't ask.) Is it wafting over from somebody else's house under construction? Might there be a sudden problem with the wiring?

No smoke, no fire, no clue.

I raced around the house opening the windows, sniffing carefully in every room, unsure where the smell was worst. But pretty soon I'd narrowed it down to the ceiling fixture in my office, huzzah. A minor evacuation (hard drive, camera, knitting in progress) ensued, and then I tried to figure out which breaker sends power to that particular light.

It was while I was racing up and downstairs from the fuse box to see whether the secondary light in that room had gone out yet that I thought to turn on the ceiling light again and hope that the power had been cut.

It hadn't. And that is how I discovered one of the high-efficiency bulbs in it had burned out.


These bulbs have a peculiar habit if they burn out and get left in the fixture, even for a few seconds.

You may not be able to make out the little grey oval patch of melted plastic on the left there, but you can probably see the blackened bottoms of the tubes. Smells like the dickens and can't be very wholesome for your lungs, to say nothing of the hours (14 and counting) it takes to get the smell out of the house - if, like me, you forget what the problem is from the last time and take an extra fifteen minutes to get it out.

Yep, this has happened to me before. Just once, but it should have been enough!

Goes against my grain to waste energy, but I'm thinking it's time to switch back to the old style bulb for a while... or at least a different brand of this kind.

Older: not always wiser

Growing up in a boxy unadorned 1950s house (which did have, nonetheless, heaps of sentimental value and history, but more on that another day), I longed to live someplace old, with character, and if possible, a fireplace and window seat (see: The Velvet Room, by Zilpha Keatley Snyder.)

When I moved away, I lived in as many older places as possible, and today, as what passes for a Responsible Adult, I can see what goes along with the fine woodwork and plastering genius and long-established neighbourhoods with nice big trees:

lead paint
asbestos
no insulation, leading to
mold, mildew, high heating bills

Of course, major renovations are always possible, but having watched neighbours (and the neighbours of those neighbours) go through that, I don't think I have the necessary fortitude.

Honestly, it's enough to send me to the real estate listings any time I think about doing any actual writing. If only agents would start including 'window seat' on their spec sheets...

The Garden Unveiled

Before: an annual border of sunflowers and columbines.



After: a living boxwood vase for lime hydrangeas... not as tall or colourful, but with year-round prettiness potential and minimal watering requirements.



Bringing new meaning to the phrase 'put your money in the pot'. Throw in some roots from a dead tree, call it sculpture, dress it up with some winter-hardy ivy to climb and cover said sculpture, and yer done. At least until the roots rot.



In the spring I'll plant an ivy that changes colour in fall to turn this into a 3-season cover for the eyesore fence. And I might even trim back the flowering shrub on the left (ya think?)

Going into Day Three

The girl with the Bazura Bag got it on the street in NYC! Does that make me hip?

Also: yes, thought about socks for much of yesterday. And mittens and hats. I am soooo not used to air conditioning.

Too Much of a Muchness?

Or not? I can't decide.

On the one hand, I never bring out more than two or possibly three of these Bazura bags at once... but on the othger hand, I did just buy myself three more. Aw, c'mon! two of them are rice bags, and the third is woven from strips of juice boxes, so they are a little different. It's not as though they aren't super cute and highly functional.

Topcoat #1

Before I head out into Day Two of painting bliss, I'd like to say two things:
Eureka, I found solutions for a couple of huge problems in the plot of the current book and
Mosquitoes love biting unsuspecting people with paintbrushes in their hands.

but Ha! I had the foresight to purchase (if not to apply in advance) bug repellent from my local health food store and darned if the stuff didn't work! and no DEET in it or anything.

MQ7 Mosquito Repellent Lotion, if you're interested.

Which leads me to note a terrific place for productive procrastination: the Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database, linked in Delay Tactics. Not only can you check to see how likely it is for your shampoo or skin cream to give you cancer, you can find safer (and in my experience, way cheaper) alternatives, and then spend even more time sourcing them. It's win-win.

Home sweet miniHome

Thinking of Airstreams made me think of the miniHome, last year's obsession now new! and improved!

Well, they've added a 12' wide version this year. And it's fabulous, of course. The concept is green architect meets mobile home, complete with bookshelves in the steps up to a dreamy loft (in the Solo model, anyway.) I find I can spend a lot of time drooling over this concept and the possibilities for add-on rooms so I thought I'd share the link in Delay Tactics and see what you guys think.

Now if I just had a piece of property I wanted to park a miniHome on, I'd get right down to the business of buying lottery tickets.

Bags of (so cool) Bags

Note I did not say Awesome, even though they are.

I feel a new bag frenzy coming on since Bazura came out with a new line of woven bags. All their stuff is made in a co-operative from juice boxes, advertising banners, and other things with short lifespans that would otherwise go to landfill and never decompose. It's the indestructibility factor that makes them so amazing for bags: your arm is going to break from carrying two tons of milk plus apples, before the bag will. Also the juice box ones stand open when you put them on the floor - never fall over - and even if they had eyes, they could get wet without batting one.

I have a bunch of sizes of juice box bags for everything from groceries to beach time to treks with paperwork in tow, and I've given one of those or the banner bags to practically everybody I can think of who might enjoy them, but... yeah, I definitely need more things from Bazura.

Their website in the delay tactics list, if you want to check them out for yourself.