Beasts of the Barn

I am contemplating writing a new blog dedicated entirely to 'the beasts of the barn', as there seems to be no end to the horrifying discoveries we have made since moving in. It also is way more interesting writing about these antics than boring updates on the house!

But until then, here is the next beastly installment...

Jon was away when I was woken in the night by a gnawing sound just above my head in the bedroom attic. From experience I knew instantly that it was a mouse (I lived for 6 months in a tent in France where we would have nightly mice visits and upon taking the tent down at the end of the season, discovered they had actually built their warren directly beneath!) I banged on the ceiling and the gnawing stopped, but as soon as I had settled back under the duvet, it started up again. Infuriating.

In the morning, Dad put up a trap filled with some tasty crunchy peanut butter ‘just in case he comes back’. I wasn’t really expecting it to catch anything, but that night I heard a scuffle, which I correctly assumed was the trap being set off. I really don’t like killing any animal, but when I saw the result of the first night’s activity, I comforted myself that at least it had certainly been a swift death.

When Jon returned, I told him the events of the past few days and he was very nonplussed, thinking it was probably just a lone mouse on an exploratory barn visit. That was until we heard more gnawing sounds, this time from the kitchen attic where Jon had just carefully stored all his furniture. Suddenly he was a lot more interested! And so began the next chapter in the barn's extermination story.

My Dad loves feeding scraps to the birds on the wall outside the kitchen, where they fly down to retrieve whatever tit-bits are on offer that day. Imagine my horror when casually walking past one day I see 3 dead mice on what I have now nicknamed ‘the sacrificial stone’, along with some noodles left-over from our evening stir-fry! It was a mouse noodle soup situation, a gruesome feast for our bird friends. Turns out Dad and Jon have been putting all the dead mice from the traps out there and something (we have no idea what) is taking them!

So in a week we had caught over 15 mice, which to me implies an infestation. But the horror didn’t stop there…

Jon has been designated official mouse trap checker as I really don’t like seeing their little lifeless bodies if I can help it. I crack on with dinner (what a wonderful patriarchal scene I am setting) and one evening was happily stirring some pasta when Jon comes in waving around one of the traps. It looked empty, but Jon gleefully shows me that it in fact contains a mouse head. Desperately shoeing him away from the food prep, I innocently inquire as to the location of the rest of it’s body. I instantly regretted my interest, as Jon enthusiastically describes how it had been mauled and skinned, leaving only entrails and the bones from it’s tiny legs! We had left the trap in place too long and it now appears that the remaining vermin (I now definitely think of them as vermin) have gone cannibalistic.

At least I hope it is 'just' mice, as otherwise it could indicate another, as yet unidentified, beast in the barn!