Mice. Most people try to find sanitary, efficient and mostly hands-off ways to get rid of them. Under normal circumstances I would included myself amongst that group. But like everything else at the sanctuary, normal is rarely the realm within which we operate. The sanctuary changes and challenges everything about me, inside and out. Little mouse was no exception.
I first met Little Mouse in a bag of dog food. Due to the number of dogs we house at the sanctuary, I keep large bags of dog food. Once a bag is opened, it is then stored in the pantry. And no matter how many times I would berate myself, I would invariably forget to tightly close the top of the bag. This is a situation no mouse can resist. So one day, after I had dragged the 50 lb bag out of the pantry I reached in with a dog bowl I used as a measure and when I fished it out there on top of the bowl now heaped with dog food sat Little Mouse.
At first I was startled but Little Mouse just sat there calmly looking at me. And there-in was the challenge. I could drop the bowl and leave Little Mouse for the dogs to dispatch or I could...what? I wasn't sure about what I should do. I just stood there holding the dog bowl and Little Mouse sat on the heaping dog food calm as could be. Waiting, I presume, for me to make up my mind. I eventually lowered the dog bowl to the counter and Little Mouse jumped off, ran across the counter then back under the stove, a nice warm home.
I suppose it seemed silly, my letting the mouse go free. After all, what's a mouse but a nasty disease carrying rodent. They are small creatures to be squashed, trapped, poisoned. At least that is the party line. But in the abstract, which is where most of us go when we causally buy poison or traps in our local hardware centers, it is easy to forget that mice have lives of their own, separate from humans. And different. But are they any less important?
After feeding the dogs I dragged the bag back to the pantry and ...you guessed it...forgot to tightly close the bag. Next day I again dragged the bag out and reached into it with a dog bowl and once again I fished out dog food and...little mouse.
This time I was not startled, just a bit mystified. Why was this mouse getting stuck in the bag and why wasn't it freaking out when I fished it out? With Little Mouse perched on top of the bowl of dog food I took a good look at him. Unlike other mice I had seen, this mouse had a bedraggled coat, tattered ears and gray muzzle. Little Mouse was old! Who knows how long Little Mouse had lived under the stove. I know the house had been where it was for seven years, so at least that long. How long do mice live? I really had no idea. But I was not going to be the one to end those years. So once again I lowered the dog bowl to the counter where Little Mouse made his journey back to the stove.
This adventure with the dog food bag and Little Mouse went on for quite a while until one day Little Mouse did not appear. I have no idea what happened to my little friend. But I do know that like many of the adventures I have living up here in this wild section of California, I was changed by the experience.
I had never really looked at a mouse so closely. Not really. Nor had I ever thought about what an aged mouse would look like. I had never really thought about mice at all. Not their lives. Not their world. Not how we change that world with our fears and myths or our need for a sterile environment. Mice were just...well...in the way and therefore expendable. But Little Mouse changed that comfortable human justification with his simple need for food and warmth. I was face to face with the life that is behind the word "mouse". No longer an abstract, Little Mouse was now a part of my daily routine, a very concrete being. And unlike humans, without natural malice. He just wanted the dog food. By accident or fate, my war with mice had ended.
Up here in hinterland, our other rodent population that humans war against are the prairie dogs. Farmers and ranchers shoot them, poison them, gas them. Certain ranches in our area even hold special "rat shoots" - an interesting use of verbal camouflage - where the public is invited to bring their guns and spend the day dispatching the critters as they peek their heads out of their underground hide outs. The shoots are held to keep the prairie dogs from consuming the alfalfa fields.
I am considered the crazy hold-out. I will not let anyone shoot the prairie dogs on our property. And yes, they do eat a lot of the alfalfa and in fact have decimated our fields. But, I still can't let the sound of gunfire roll across our acres. When I left the defense industry I was through with the theory and reality of killing. I will find other ways to keep them from ruining the alfalfa. After all, if we can put a man on the moon, take the temperature of mars and explore the rings of Saturn, surely we can find a way to share this planet with the many creatures that inhabit it. That challenge is my ode to Little Mouse.
"Five sparrows are sold for just two pennies. But God doesn't forget a one of them". Luke 12:6
