So, we’re used to mouse rodeos, though they are less frequent these days now that we’ve tightened up the foundation and reduced access points into the house. Poor kitty, no real mice to play with, but that’s another story.
This morning we were having a rousing game of fetch with Mishkin, using his toy mice. He was very into the game. And then he ran full speed back towards the speakers for our television set, and Dan heard a very loud squeak. Way too loud for a mouse. Dan grabbed the flashlight and was on the hunt, following the cat.
A brown streak ran across the living room floor towards the couch, a gray streak in the form of the cat hot on its tail. We couldn’t believe our eyes, it was a Short-tailed Weasel! Out from under the couch he ran, then around the couch, and under the end table, back under the couch, back under the television stand. The rodeo was in full swing.
I snatched up the cat, much to his dismay, and stuffed him into the bathroom and closed the door. Yowl!! Much protesting ensued.
We opened the front door and the sun room door onto the porch, hoping Mr. Weasel would notice and leave on his own. No such luck. And then we tried our luck with weasel-herding. People think herding cats is tough.
Fortunately for us, the weasel wanted the exact same thing we did – out of the house. How to communicate that to the weasel was the problem we needed to solve.
By this time our ‘guest’ was under the file cabinets where the printer resides. This was good. He was close to the sun room doors and all we needed to do was get him to run in a straight line into the sun room and out the door. I tried using a back scratcher to move him from out under the file cabinets. Unlike a mouse, he wasn’t particularly afraid of that. Dan was watching my efforts, using a flashlight to see under the cabinets.
The weasel would duck behind a wheel and sniff the end of the back scratcher when it got close. At one point he stuck his head out of the side of the file cabinet and sniffed at Dan, then he ducked back under. This wasn’t going so well. We changed tactics.
I laid down on the floor with the flashlight so I could watch, and Dan tried herding. He had better luck! A brown streak ran straight into the sun room, and Dan followed quickly, shutting the doors between the sun room and living room to prevent re-entry into the main house. And then we looked carefully all over the sun room, moving a couple of sacks of bird seeds delivered yesterday, and under the furniture. No weasel! He had figured it out and ran straight out the door and outdoors where he belongs.
A successful rodeo.
I released the cat from his captivity and told him what a good kitty he was. He gave me a puzzled look and has been searching for his little friend ever since. He’s camped out next to my chair at the moment, on the off-chance his buddy will emerge from hiding. And something I didn’t really think about before but know now, upset weasels are stinky little fellows. They have musk glands and he was exceedingly upset by it all.
What we really want to know is how he got into the house in the first place. Theoretically, I suppose, he can fit into a hole that a mouse can fit into, but he’s so much bigger than a mouse. We’ll try to figure this out because a pack rat could also fit into a hole that size, at least a small pack rat could. Sigh.
Gold Rush russet potatoes on the left; Yukon Gold potatoes on the right.
Last weekend we harvested the potatoes from our two raised beds. We ended up with around 115 pounds of potatoes, roughly two thirds as much of the baking potatoes as the Yukon Gold potatoes. We aren’t sure why the baking potatoes grew so much better but that’s ok, live and learn.
We bought some blackout cloth and covered one of the lowest shelves in the pantry, for our cold storage. It stays very cool in the pantry, in the 40F’s, and we’re hoping this will be a successful method since we lack a root cellar.
Fun! This is a staple crop and we are excited to have such a good result on our first attempt. We’ve been enjoying potatoes the past few days for dinner.