August 21, 2005

That Mousie on the Window

Our sunroom has sliding glass windows with screens. The screens are on the outside and there's a space a little deeper than an inch between screen and glass.

One of the screens has a fairly large tear in it and we don't open that one. We plan to replace all of the screens this fall.

It turns out the tear (actually a rectangular hole) is just about... woodrat sized.

We were sitting in the sunroom last night before bed when I noticed the cats were Very Alert. I went over to investigate.

Oh Ho!

A woodrat had come in through the hole in the screen and was now pasted between screen and window. Kind of a large X-shaped mouse with a very long tail. (Keep in mind that the space between window and screen is slightly shallower than a woodrat. :)

Woodrats really are cute. They have such long tails - longer than the body - and bright little eyes.

The kitties really wanted this one. But there was this annoying pane of glass in the way.

I took a scissors and went outside and cut a small flap at the bottom corner of the screen on that window. As soon as the mousiekins noticed - Zoom! he dove through that hole and was gone in the shrubbery.

Rich says it's easier to find things at the corners and edges of a space. That was certainly true in this case. Our little rodent friend went through the new hole so fast I had to look twice to see if there wasn't another hole I hadn't known about!

That Mousie on the Window - posted by Vicki at Sun, 21 Aug, 22:36 Pacific | «e»