Tag Archives: mice

PETA Upset Over Dead Mice

The other day, I read that the government was going to drop dead mice from helicopters over Guam.  It sounded crazy, but there was a good reason.  Officials are using the mice to get rid of an estimated two million brown tree snakes. The snakes have overtaken the territory, causing damage to both the economy and environment.  The snakes have almost depleted Guam’s native bird species.  This lack of birds causes a frightening (at least to me) side effect – the island now has 40 times more spiders than surrounding islands.  Needless to say, all the spiders and snakes have … Continue reading →

Of Mice, Teeth, and Fairies

The magical day has arrived… Happy Halloween to those who are dressing up and celebrating today! I’m taking a break from putting the finishing touches on my costume to give some thought to the Tooth Fairy. Why? Because that’s what I’m going to be for Halloween! For many people, teeth are a milestone. When are the baby teeth coming in? When are the baby teeth falling out, to be replaced by adult teeth? The change from infant to child to adolescent can be measured in our teeth. In the days when superstition was strong, teeth falling out could be bad … Continue reading →

Mouse Hunt!

What happens when you combine a former city chick who has seen rats the size of small cats, a handy husband that is surviving on too little sleep and a mysterious “something” with an appetite for a 45-year-old house in the woods? Chaos, I tell you, chaos. When I last left off, I was telling you about our adventures with a mystery rodent. Let’s call it Godzilla, so you don’t confuse it with that cute little epicures mouse in Ratatouille. Better yet, let’s call it the ROUS (rodent of unusual size); with teeth. (If you missed the early part of … Continue reading →

Of Rats and Men

Oh, you noticed the change in the title, have you? There is a good reason for that. Here are the continuing adventures of our battle of wits with the rodent who threatened our home and our sanity. If you missed the earlier article, you can read it here: Of Mice and Men The scratching started up again, and with a sigh, my husband, at my prompting got to banging. I coached him on technique and frequency. When the mouse fell silent, we would retreat back to the couch to wait. Then the noise would start up again. At one point … Continue reading →

Of Mice and Men

In the middle of the morning, around 4 am or so, I heard this loud scratching sounds. Fearful that our youngest son somehow got up and was getting into trouble, I headed downstairs, half asleep. When I got down, I found my husband with a flashlight and his head cocked to one side. The scratching started up again. “Is it a mouse?” I asked and he shushed me. I complained under my breath about our less than stellar extermination company; the one that failed to show up for the last two appointments. My husband opened the garage door and started … Continue reading →

Reading Rodents: Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH

Before it was a movie, The Secret of NIMH was a book: Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Published in 1971, Robert C. O’Brien’s book won the Newbery Medal in 1972. Mrs. Frisby is a widowed field mouse. Her late husband was a companion of the mysterious and intelligent rats of NIMH. NIMH is the National Institute of Mental Health. The rats had been subject to various experiments that left them highly intelligent and organized — more like humans than rats. They escaped the lab and set up a literate, mechanized society under a rose bush near where the … Continue reading →

How Brown Mouse Kept Christmas – Clyde Watson

It’s Christmas Eve, and everyone is running around getting ready for Christmas, hanging up their stockings and putting up the last minute decorations. They sang carols and then all the children went to bed. They could hear the grown-ups moving around downstairs, but soon the whole house was quiet and everyone was fast asleep. Meanwhile, in the attic, the mice were excited about Christmas. Christmas means crumbs! They had spent the day letting the cat chase them so he’d be too tired to chase them tonight when they crept downstairs to see what they could get into. Brown Mouse was … Continue reading →

Ruby and the Sniffs – Michael Emberly

This book was a hit with my kids the minute it hit the door. My two-year-old son took one look at the cover and waved at it. “Hi, Mouse!” Ruby is a cute little mouse who wears red overalls and a baseball cap (turned backwards, of course—the cool way). Ruby and her friend, Mrs. Mastiff, are sitting quietly, reading, when suddenly, Ruby hears a noise upstairs. She thinks maybe it’s cat burglars, but Mrs. Mastiff tells her that they live in a cat-free building, so that can’t possibly be it. Ruby really wants to go check it out, but Mrs. … Continue reading →

The Tale of Despereaux – Kate DiCamillo

I’ve been blogging for Families.com for a year now (happy blogoversary to me!) and one of my favorite parts of the job is finding great books and then telling you all about them. “The Tale of Despereaux” is such a book. Despereaux was the smallest mouse his mother had ever seen. When he was born, his eyes were open – very uncommon for a mouse – and she was sure he wouldn’t live. He did live, however, and found himself able to do things that the other mice couldn’t. He had a wonderful appreciation for music, which smelled like honey … Continue reading →

An American Tail (1986)

“An American Tail” is a Steven Spielberg film, directed by Don Bluth. I wanted to like it, I really did. Knowing that the main characters were Jewish-Russian mice, I thought, “What’s not to love?” I’ve always been intrigued with the Jewish-Russian culture, one of my favorite movies is “Fiddler on the Roof,” and I even got to go to Russia as a teenager. I was prepared to enjoy. I didn’t get anything I’d hoped for. To start with, these mice have to leave their homes because the Cossacks have raided their village in a pogram. Our main characters, the Mousekewitz … Continue reading →