Alternative Mouse Catching

Herself is adhament that whatever the weather we must go out to receive the benefits of fresh air and exercise. Yes, I know we have a run-in, but nevertheless the temperatures are such that our breath nearly freezes mid-air and falls to the ground before we have taken the next breath. If Dante's Inferno can be frozen, then we are living in it.

We were lined up at the door this afternoon, listening carefully to the sounds of our dinners being cooked within, when a terrible thumping and crashing burst forth. The woman seemed to be moving large pieces of furniture and exhorting Sally on to greater efforts in...well in what undertaking we didn't exactly know. Finally the woman appeared at the door, out of breath and blotchy of visage. Sally was sitting in the doorway of the tack room, doing some heavy breathing herself.

We filed in in the usual order and got down to the serious business of calorie intake. The woman was busy allocating our hay pittance when she suddenly rose straight up in the air and said "Wahhhh yerrrrgh waugggh"! I assumed she had suddenly begun speaking in tongues - something entirely possible around here - and carried on with ferreting out the peppermint and apple bits in my dinner (more molecular size than actual bits, you understand).

Sally was in the process of standing up and this revealed a rather plump mouse, upon which she had been sitting. It was said rodent's tail that the woman had observed moving as it stuck out of Sally's fur on one side. The mouse took a deep breath, shook himself and stalked off in an offended manner, no doubt to continue his predations on whatever he had been working over when he was rudely interrupted by a gigantic, furry posterior squashing him to the floor.

The woman became even more animated, imploring Sally to chase the escaping criminal but Sally merely watched her with great interest, waiting to see what new gyrations might be forthcoming. Sally then yawned, stretched, and went to the shelf where her Kitty Temptation Treats are stored. "Mmmmmm mmmmmeow?" she said. Which means, treats, please, in feline.

This caused the woman to become quite indignant and to trot out her old lecture about her being the only one doing any work around here. Completely unfair, of course, as Sally had caught the mouse just as the woman had demanded. Surely it was up to Herself to take over once he had been released from Sally's ingenius holding technique.

There's simply no pleasing some people. I speak from experience.