I know, I know, I’ve been too long making a post. I’ve been a busy girl. I’m a true Mainer; I work all day, hunt, fish and work in between on weekends.

Since opening day, I’ve been hunting every morning and afternoon I possibly can, and while doing that my husband and I decided to tackle our biggest ever DIY project: a massive full wood burning fireplace with natural stone veneer. Our stove pipe took forever to arrive which is why were were delayed in starting the project sooner. With the weather clock now ticking, we went for it hoping Mother Nature would be kind long enough for us to mortar before winter arrived.

Just before we began the project, we carved our Halloween pumpkins and readied for the kids that never come to the house anymore. I had purchased an enormous amount of candy for Halloween, but in an attempt to not reach for a miniature every time I saw it, I put the bowl of candy in the pantry. It worked; I never touched the candy again.

A couple days later, the light in my pantry burned out. So I replaced the bulb. It still didn’t’ work. I went to Home Depot and purchased an LED light to replace the other. I installed it, put in another light bulb and wouldn’t you know, the light didn’t work. Not getting frustrated, I then turned to the switch. I went back to Home Depot, bought a new switch, replaced and you guessed it, the light still doesn’t work. Figuring that I did something wrong when I installed the new fixtures, I decided to wait until the weekend to deal with it…right.

Halloween arrived and as usual, I wasn’t back from hunting so my son Ty answered the door, reached for the bowl of candy and handed some out. When I finally got home, informed me that we had mice because there were mouse droppings in the bowl.

I didn’t believe it; we have a full basement, good doors…no way. We’ve only had mice once before when the cellar door got left open after we threw wood and A..ONE mouse got in, which we promptly caught. But yup, Ty was right. We had mice and they were in the pantry…double gross I know. I’m thinking two or three mice maximum…right.

So I went to catching the mice. I set out the common yellow mouse traps that are pretty tricky to set up and you must make sure your fingers are out of the way when you set them. A little peanut butter bait and voila…how could they resist? It worked! It worked until the trap was worn out and wouldn’t hold up my peanut butter. So I resorted to buying a new fangled trap from Victor…the same maker as the yellow one. I immediately catch mouse two and three. I tweet about my catches. Victor (the mouse trap company) begins to follow me on Twitter. I am feeling pretty accomplished and thinking I need to blog about this! I’m baiting for mice…just like bear, but having WAY more luck than I did bear hunting.  I’ll call it Three Dead Mice…lol…I then go to the grocery store to buy more Snickers…because the mice LOVE Snickers. 

By the way, I’m not laughing any more and I still haven’t blogged. As I wake in the morning to find mouse number 5 caught on his hind leg, I am concerned. He looks dead. He’s not moving…He’s dead. I go to show John my catch. As I stretch out my arm to show him the mouse, it moves. It moves! I let a yelp out because I don’t want the mouse to get loose. I put the bowl, mouse and candy on the deck. John says it’s got to die. He goes to kill it. As he picks up the mouse trap, we both see that the mouse was never caught. He was just napping after eating so much candy. The tire iron did the trick. No. 5 down.

As of this morning I am up to ELEVEN. Number 10, I named Houdini since it took four tries to catch him. I hoping I’m at the end. The last one was considerably smaller. The pantry light still isn’t fixed, but I have a sneaking suspicion it’s something to do with the mice, which might also explain the ungodly smell we had coming from our refrigerator about the time this all started happening. We emptied the refrigerator, and finally threw out the only thing we had left: worms which we assumed must be the cause. I am told no, mice stink worse than anything. Oh joy. I’ll keep you posted on my count.

We’re at the end of our project. We were able to complete the outside with a little help from Mother Nature and a couple 50 degree days. All the mortar and grout outside has now cured and is a lovely gray. My fingers may take a while to recover, but damn we’re good. Just finishing up inside but we’re not done. I bought new flooring…and I’m muzzleloader hunting….it’s gonna be a busy weekend!