What do the mice know that I don't?

Last Bite

As you may know, I blog from an old feedlot. There are no cattle here now, because its too close to the sensitive nostrils of town folks, who think that agriculture ought to be cashed in on but not smelled. So the feedlot office is surrounded on all sides by fields planted alternately to corn and soybeans. There must be millions of mice within a mile of the feedlot.

Twice every year many of these mice make a concerted effort to get into my office building. In the spring, when the fields are planted, and again in the fall at harvest time when their happy dens get torn up by the machinery, I can always expect a flood of little furry refugees. What mouse wouldn't want to move in with an old duffer that has plenty of food and only sweeps up his crumbs three or four times a year?

For the last couple of weeks, however, I've been getting invaded by hordes of mice for no reason I can see. The fields are in corn this year, the weather is normal and there has been plenty of moisture. Why the little rascals should want to go looking for new digs now is beyond me. I have to check my trap line twice a day. I wonder if the mice know something I don't.
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Speaking of trap lines reminded me of an old place that DadGum and I shared for a few years. It was an old one-room school house divided into rooms by wooden doors. We called it the Bayou and it had a relaxing "trap room":

The Trap Room

I'd get a cat, but the last ones I had here didn't like the fact that I keep the thermostat set at about 55ºF all winter. They were old, and both of them caught pneumonia and died the first winter they were here. For a good cat story, check out Jeffro's Poor Farm post about his cat Rooster.