A weekend house guest

It seems no summer long weekend on PEI is complete without a house guest. Mine was no exception. But this guest was here for a little longer, I'm not sure how long but I first became aware of his (or her) presence a couple of weeks ago, but wasn't totally aware of it.

I opened the cutlery drawer and there were several pieces of dog kibble in the drawer. In the back of my mind I seemed to remember having spilled some dog food on the counter sometime earlier. I just figured that the drawer must have been open when that happened and some fell in. Why I hadn't noticed earlier totally escaped me. So I picked it out and put it back in the dogs bowl.

Saturday morning I opened the cutlery drawer and one of the compartments was overflowing with dog food. I just recently changed Coopers food and the pieces are much bigger than before. This was all new food, except for one piece of dry pasta. Now I knew I had company. We had mice on Inkerman Street in Guelph and they would take food and hoard it in piles in the unlikeliest of places - under the TV, behind book shelves, etc.

I fully expected to have mice in the house over the winter but so far I had never seen any sign of any, except for the day I came back from Arizona and Brenda dropped me off at home. There was a dead mouse in the middle of the floor of the back porch. No idea how it died.

I cleaned out the drawer once more and considered what I should do. I don't have any traps or any poison so I would have to get some the next time I was in town. But that idea isn't my favorite either as I've kept pet mice as a kid, but I know I have to get rid of them.

Sunday morning I'm sitting at the kitchen table writing my blog and I hear a soft "blip" of sorts every so often. It was almost like the sound a slowly dripping tap might make. I checked the faucets and they were nice and tightly turned off, so I went back and sat down. The sound continued but seemed to stop when I went near the sink. I decided to look under the sink cupboard. I had taken out both garbage bags the night before and the plastic containers were empty, except for the tall one which had one little mouse in it, trying very hard to jump out but it was just too deep. I took the container out of the cupboard and he just sat there. He didn't seem scared or running about frantically. He just looked at me as if to say, can you give me a hand here? He was so quiet he looked like a pet mouse that's used to being handled. I didn't pick him up, but I did take the container outside and turned it on it's side. He just ambled out and walked around a bit, then scurried off into the field. I know, I know, he'll be back, but I just couldn't kill him intentionally. He was so cute and he was just trying to survive.

We had the same thing happen with one on Inkerman Street once when we were on vacation. We got home and there was a dead mouse in the bottom of the empty garbage container. I felt so badly for it having struggled to get out until it died. I was happy to have been able to save this one. Most people think I'm slightly mad but that's who I am. I'm a sucker for sad little eyes.

I talked to Lloyd on the weekend and speaking of sad little eyes, they had their lobster party on Saturday. 42 pounds of fresh PEI lobsters were cooked to the delight of about 20 people. He said it was lots of work but everyone enjoyed themselves. Our friend Stephan was also there visiting for the weekend. When I called yesterday afternoon, there was a whole bunch of them sitting around in the hanger at the airport drinking beer. He's going to miss that when he gets here! He had made a chowder and they were planning to have that for supper along with something on the BBQ. I, on the other hand, enjoyed a Dairy Queen blizzard for my supper last night. I was in town poking around at Winners looking for a top to go with the new dress pants I bought in Arizona and on my way home I stopped at DQ. Brenda had mentioned Dairy Queen when I talked to her on Sunday night and I had that craving all day Monday.

Today feels like Monday, and tomorrow will feel like Friday as I'm off to Regina on Thursday. I've changed my flights home. I was getting into Toronto at 11:15 in the morning on Sunday so I may as well spend the afternoon and stay over and I can get a lift to the airport on Monday morning and catch the first flight out at 8:25. That will get me back on the island by 11:30. James has a ball tournament in London on the weekend so they won't be back until later in the day, depending on if they win or not. Patti expressed her opinion that it might not be a problem as they likely won't win anyway, so I told her to tell him that I'll be the consolation prize. If they lose they get back in time to have a little visit with me.