Mice like peanut butter.

I know because yesterday I picked one up. By accident. I was in the greenhouse re-potting my peppers, tomatoes and beans when I lifted the bag of seed potatoes from under the bench. They’re small and round and have long red roots coming out of them. Kind of like a mouse and its tail. So I didn’t spot it until it was in my hand.

It jumped. I jumped higher. It scampered off in terrified silence. I dropped the potatoes and made a far less dignified noise than the little rodent, although I think I gained some credibility later on, for while he cowered under the compost bag I stayed put and did another hour of planting and re-potting with my jeans tucked into my socks.

So today I went to Homebase and bought a humane trap to catch and release him down by the river. It’s very simple. You put some peanut butter on the cap, snap it onto one end, and then balance it so that the crook of the boomerang-shaped device is on the floor, the buttery end is pointing up and the open end runs flat along the floor. Sniffing the butter, the mouse wanders in for a quick lick or two, overbalances the whole unsturdy contraption and and finds himself trapped as the door slams shut behind him.

Well, that’s the theory anyway, but it was so difficult to balance that I have my doubts. I actually had to scoop out some of the peanut butter before it would sit properly. But we’ll see. By tomorrow morning I might have a new pet, who can hopefully be liberated far enough away from my strawberries to give me some fruit this summer.

Fruit means jam, and jam and mice don’t mix.