Hunt.....or be hunted.

The past few days, our dog has been very keen on one particular spot in the garden behind our garage. Since she is mostly blind and totally deaf, her sense of smell is keen as the old pointing dog in her refuses to give into old age. (she is a hunting breed, but never actually hunted; she has lived her life on table scraps and sleeping on furniture) Upon closer inspection, the wife discovered a nest. Instantly, widespread panic and paranoia sets in. "What is this nest?," she shouts. Naturally, whatever lives in this nest has infested the entire house! This beast is likely eating our food, living in our walls and slowly chewing apart the rafters of the house. Soon the house will cave in, killing us all........

"Mice! It's a mouse," the wife exclaims! "We have mice in the garden! I know it's a mouse nest under one of my plants! I can see them in the nest right now!" She then states, "If you see one mouse, then there are 30,000 more you don't see." At least that's what mouseinthehouse.com says. We have to get rid of the mouse. Also, if there is a mouse in the garden, then they automatically get a key to the house, and shorly thereafter, move into the house and begin their path of total infestation and destruction. After several minutes of calming and counseling we devised a plan to "remove" the beasts. Now this story is funny, if you know Brandi, because she doesn't like to harm anything. Have you ever seen the person that almost runs the car into oncoming traffic to miss the squirrel crossing the road? Or the person that sighs and gets distressed when a rabbit or dear is dead on the side off the road? I live with this person. Pretty funny, because her father and brother kill enough deer to feed us all each year.

I quickly explained that killing the animals would not be a problem. Brandi needed a more humane way. After she called her dad under significant distress we devised our plan. Although we vowed never to speak of this deed, I felt it needed to be blogged. In an effort to be kind, humane and worldly I scooped up the entire nest into a 5 gallon bucket and then drove it to a local nature preserve where I could set the animals free. What a nice, happy ending to a potentially tragic and deadly story. I feel so good about myself right now for making the world a better place.

As Paul Harvey says: "Now, the rest of the story." So I actually headed out with a shovel to knock the mice off. Brandi walked away into the house and started on a bottle of wine to calm her conscience and nerves. So' I gave a few quick and stealthy WHACKS to the nest and shoveled the not so untraumatically killed animals into bucket to put in the trash. However, as I dug them from their nest, I discovered that they were quite large for baby mice. Upon closer inspection, they weren't baby mice. In fact, they were baby rabbits. After telling brandi that the animals she so feared invading our house were cute, cuddly, fuzzy bunnies that I had flogged to death with a shovel, the wine bottle basically became a funnel. It was actually pretty funny, but Brandi chooses not to speak of what we now just call "the deed that was done." I guess there probably will not be a very good easter egg hunt in this yard next year.