New Roomates.... Mice, Ladybugs.... what next?

This has been a relatively mild winter so far and it's surprising to see the numbers of adorable but unwanted field mice who are intent on spending the winter in the house with us. I suppose by definition this means each has "evolved" from a field mouse into a house mouse. Everywhere I turn, a little Hunca Munca is hurrying into some crevice or opening we've never noticed before. What interests me is that they have arrived in numbers far greater than we've battled the last couple of years. It's not a terribly cold winter - are they a harbinger of things to come? Do they sense something about the months ahead that our computer forecasting can't determine?

My practical evaluation is that they are coming inside more often this winter because it is the first fall in several years that it has been wet. Really wet. Wet enough, frequently enough to flood underground tunnels and turn cosy nests sodden.

Interestingly, the house mouse has a defined latin name: Mus musculus (which makes me think of a tiny bodybuilder) while the field mouse is not considered a specific species (gotta love that phrase) but is, rather, a collective common term for any odd number of terrestrial rodents. That last is an encyclopedia phrase and makes me wonder about the presence of aquatic rodents.... aerial rodents? (Would that last include bats?)

Well, in person, I think mice are adorable and would probably make room for them were it not for the fact that they have zero bladder control (in fact, I believe they don't have a bladder per se) but, rather, they trickle urine where ever they go. Now, that's just rude. Particularly in my kitchen. Last year we used a nifty little trap called the MiceBox - kind of a scaled down Havahart trap that we could empty wa-ay over in the far field. No such luck this year, I can't find the product anywhere. Rob's hunting with an old-fashioned mousetrap. Oh, dear.