Country Mouse

Just when you think you’re alone…

I went into the garage to fill up the white pail (the one with no lid now because The Squirrel chewed a huge hole in it) with sunflower seeds, so that I could fill our empty bird feeders this morning. Grabbing the pail, thinking it was empty, there was a – gasp – mouse in it!

“Aaaah,” I cried, just a tad bit startled. Although I can imagine the mouse was a lot more scared of giant me than I was of its wee little self.

Unlike my husband, I’m not trying to rid the earth of mice. No. I was not about to harm this adorable tiny brown-with-dark-eyes-pleading creature. After all, it has a right to dwell somewhere in the countryside as we do. It has enough to worry about – cats, hawks, snakes, etc.

I was ready to release it outdoors when (it must have sensed the cold, and the aforementioned dangers) it jumped out of the white pail and scooted right under the small pile of firewood inside the garage.

Oh well.

This all happened so fast that there was no time for pictures, posing, any of that frivolity. Just imagine back to your childhood ideas of the cute country mouse, and you will see it perfectly.

And I still have company.