The Great Mouse Hunt

Late at night, the second week that we were in our new house,
my husband came to me and said, "I found a mouse in the garage."
"Alive or dead?" I asked.
"Alive. He's stuck in a cardboard box."
"Hmmm."

So like any normal people we caught him and transferred him to a plastic storage bin filled with a shredded paper towels, a bowl of water and a bowl of squirrel food. We punched air holes in the top and clamped down the lid. Then went to bed. The next morning I went to the pet store and bought and aquarium, nesting bed, running wheel, water bottle and proper mouse food, and of course gave him a name.

Meet Mozzarella:

I know what you are thinking. We are not normal.
We couldn't send him out in the snow! It was after midnight, and like 10 degrees out there!
I admit it sounds crazy, but I had pet mice as a kid, and two separate times we caught them the same way. The were nice little pets and each lived for almost two years.

I thought Bubba might enjoy him since he used to love going to the pet store and watching all of the furry animals, but our pet store here in Wisconsin is more of a pet food warehouse, with no furry critters to watch. I found that someone else seems to enjoy watching Mozzarella a little bit more, though: one of our cats Dora. The first week we had him, she could barely tear herself away from the cage to eat breakfast which is very unlike Dora, who has been known to go to drastic measures to get breakfast whenever she sees fit. Luckily Mozzarella is bold, and doesn't seem to mind the attention, staring her down and standing his ground.

Only problem is the other day I found some more of his friends in the garbage can in the garage. One was dead, but the other was very much alive.
Well crap! I can't put every field mouse I find in an aquarium. The whole house will be full of tiny aquariums. We live in the country. There are fields all around us. Probably with thousands of field mice. So we decided we should just try to free him, it was almost 40 degrees out that day, not as bad as the night we caught Mozzarella. We set up a box on it's side in the driveway (cause it was raining, and I didn't want him to get wet), filled it with a little food and a paper towel shredded up to keep him warm. Then we moved the trash can up to it and he ran in! Yay!

Then he ran back past us and into the garage. Sneaky bastard.
Then he climbed up the studs and into a hole near the ceiling of the garage. We figure they are either in between the walls of the garage, or they made it to the attic. Something must be done. But clearly I can't kill them.

Ah, the joys of home ownership!