We have a cheeky little mouse

We have mice. I am not proud of it and we do our best to keep the population at, or at least close, to zero, but living in a cabin that was originally built around 1928 and its additions sometimes makes it hard to find the holes they are sneaking through. So, we continue the battle, curse at the little buggers, keep everything that they like shut in tubs to be safe and laugh when they do something funny. 

Last week, I had been finishing up the canning, cutting the deer and some other stuff, and hence hadn’t gotten my dishes done for a couple of days. When I cleaned out the sink and stacked the previously rinsed dishes (Rick is great about rinsing all of the dishes after meals) in preparation to wash them, I found a silicone basting brush in the bottom of the sink. It was the one I used to brush melted ghee on toast or in a skillet and there it was in the sink, but it was missing all of its bristles. I knew exactly what happened. 

Some cheeky, little bugger had chewed all of the bristles off of that brush! Little bugger! I wished a bad taste in his mouth on him and laughed with Rick about the chance of finding little mouse doo-doo with red silicone pieces in it. We laughed, I may have called the mouse a bad name or two, but life went on. 

A few days later, I was doing a good clean around my sink and as I moved the old soap dish I keep a scrub brush and pan scraper in, I found all of the bristles. That stinker of a mouse didn’t eat them after all, he just carried them up out of the sink and sucked all of the goodies off of them!

So, what are we going to do with said mouse? We are going to set the live trap on top of the stove and bait it with bacon grease and ghee. That should get him. I rarely have to worry about the mouse traps, Rick and Scotchy take care of them: if a mouse gets caught in the live trap, Scotchy will tell us, and Rick will take the trap out and let Scotchy catch and kill the bugger. If there are two, then Cocklebur, the outside cat, gets one, too. 

Will update soon on the fate of the cheeky, little bugger. 

Grace’s Caramel Corn

2 cups brown sugar

1 cup butter

½ cup corn syrup

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon soda

 1 teaspoon vanilla

8 quarts popped corn, peanuts or mixed nuts

Boil first four ingredients for 5 minutes. Remove from heat, then add soda and vanilla. Stir into corn and add nuts. Spread out on a large pan bake at 200º for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Spread on waxed paper to cool and break apart. Store in an airtight container.