Grace, The Mighty Mouse Hunter

Grace is about 16.  I say about because I adopted her as (I thought) a kitten in 1998.  Her Mom was a feral cat that I used to feed, and she brought at least two litters to my front porch when they were old enough.  Missy (Mom cat) would sometimes almost let me pet her, and she brought me a dead snake once as a gift, but she and her brood were pretty feral.  The cat I now call Grace was originally called Blackie because, well, she was black.  After putting food in the dish on the porch she followed me in the house one day, and the rest is history.

Since then, she's been an indoors-only cat (she did escape for 2 weeks once, but she came back).  I sometimes find lizards in the bathtub in my Winter Palace, and none of my cats ever bothered with them.  They were all spoiled, pampered, royal kitties who never had to hunt or gather their food.

Grace normally sleeps on my pillow or right next to me at night.  Last night she settled in, then left.  I fell sound asleep early and dreamed about fishing (who knows why; and this has nothing to do with the story anyway).  I awoke to her insistent whining and meowing, and thinking maybe she was hungry, got up at 10:30 pm and put more food in her bowl.  She sniffed at it, then went halfway into the living room and meowed some more.

I turned on the light in the kitchen to see what was going on, and there, in the middle of the floor, was a dead mouse.  I picked it up and threw it away (ewww), and praised Gracie for killing it.  I haven't seen even droppings in this camper for a couple of years, so I figured it was a fluke.

I turned off the light and went back to bed, but Grace kept whining.  I thought, "oh no, what if the mouse was poisoned and now she's ill"?  So I got back up and googled it.  She was still acting weird, but now she was acting weird with a purpose.

"There's a second mouse", I thought.

No way - impossible.  No mice in years and suddenly two in one night?   Another mouse laying on its back was in the same spot on the floor.  I bent down to pick it up to throw it away and it suddenly recovered its senses and ran.  Damn.  I went back to the computer and this time googled "mice in campers".

Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement.

"There it is!"

Grace didn't seem to see it, so I got a tupperware container, trapped it, and released it outside.

Grace was still patrolling the perimeter.

"There couldn't be three, could there?  Nah, I got the last one."

Leaving Grace to monitor the situation, I went back to bed.  At 3:30 a.m., Grace is in the bedroom pacing underneath the bed, whining.

"There are three", I thought.  Damn.

Turning the lights back on, I realize that she brought me this one, alive and squirming in her mouth.  She realized that there was no way I was going to be able to hunt and kill on my own, so she was attempting to teach me!  She dropped it at my feet and the mouse scrambled.  When I didn't give chase, she had to.  I heard occasional squeaks from behind the curtains as Grace stalked her prey.

When Grace temporarily lost sight of mouse #3, I went back to bed.  Again.

4:04 a.m. Grace is back in the bedroom - she caught it again.  And once again, she held it alive and dropped it in front of me.  I was able to catch it in Tupperware this time and release it outside.

Back inside, Grace seemed calmer.  So I went back to bed.  Again.

A little known fact - mid-June in Minnesota, the sun comes up, oh, around 4:30 a.m. or so.  The birds started singing soon after I hit the sheets.  My Mighty Mouse Hunter was sound asleep in her chair of course, resting up for another night of patrolling.  She seems pretty disgusted with me that I can't seem to catch on to what she's been patiently trying to teach me, but she'll keep trying anyway.

I've got one covered trap set up and 4 on order.  Once the rain quits I'll see if I can find where they're coming in - got a supply of steel wool to plug any holes, and "mouse repellent" too (mint).  Hopefully last night was a fluke, but I'm ready to go to war now.

Tonight, if I sleep (and that is doubtful), I'll dream of Grace dropping mouse after mouse on my slumbering body, trying to wake up my killer instinct so I won't starve.