Chritmas Tree Visitor

You know how it is fun to find a pine cone or if you are really lucky a birds nest in your Christmas tree.  Maybe not, but I do.  We get a live tree every year and I love finding a pine cone or a birds nest left over from summer.  This year there was really going to be a surprise.

I noticed one of our cats sitting next to the tree.

Then I noticed he wasn't drinking the pine flavored water they so love.

He was looking up into and circling the tree.

He is one of the young ones.  The old ones and the lazier one were asleep.

My name is Guthrie and this is what I usually do.

Guthrie finally got my attention and it is amazing how long that took because he was noisy and in quite a focused panic.  I was afraid he was going to climb the tree and that was not on my agenda.  I really like putting the tree up only once.

Here is what I found in our tree.

He is ridiculously cute.  Back in the college days, we used to have rats that come in our house through the power lines and would pilfer through my purse for cheerios (I had kids when I was in college just in case you thought maybe I never grew out of my cheerio stage!) and killed our Gerbil for his food.  No love lost and they were not cute.  This guy is totally cute.  Cute can really work magic even if you are a rodent.  That poops in the basement.  And eats the bird seed. And makes a mess.

 He is actually sitting in the tree cleaning himself like he has not a care in the world.

How did this story end?  He finally came down from the tree and started sprinted through the house at amazing speeds.  Guthrie is definitely after him first and then the other three rose from their slumber and joined the chase.  They were in serious competition with my son (wearing leather gloves and who is not 10 years old, some might say he is a grown man with a soft spot for animals) who is now involved in the chase.  The cats all caught him at least once but my son won.  He put him in an old aquarium and fed him cheese (what else?) and parsnips.  He going to keep him for a couple of days and let him go in the woods where he belongs.  I am sure he knows the way back to our house but I don't have the heart to kill him or allow the cats to torture him to death.

To be honest, we have found a few mice lately.  They aren't the ugly little rat type mice nor are they voles.  Voles are no fun, they are stinky and weird and they fight back.  These are the cute little mice that have numerous children stories written about them like When You Give a Mouse a Cookie.  Now we have never had problems with mice or little varmints because we have cats.  That is usually enough to keep them away.  We live next to the woods and our neighbors without cats tell us stories.  We were always like "We'll never have mice".  We are eating out words this year.  We have mice and there doesn't seem to be an end to them.  They sure are brave little rascals.

That is the end of my mouse story but sadly not the end of the mice.  I am sure there are more to come!

Happy Holidays!

Laura