By Mary Tucker

It was a beautiful day in late March, sunny, unseasonably warm and too nice to be indoors. After being outside all morning raking leaves left from fall and picking branches and stones from the front lawn, I came in for a short rest and lunch. As I washed my hands, I saw a mouse come out from under the stove, and scoot into the sink cabinet. Before making my sandwich and tea I set two traps, one near the stove and the other in the space under the sink, using chunky peanut butter as bait. Then I sat down to enjoy lunch with the book I was currently reading.

Noises came from the kitchen area. Guess what happened! There was a mouse caught in the trap with the wire across its back, alive and still munching on the peanut butter. What should I do? I thought the mouse deserved to finish eating the peanut butter so I picked up the trap with the mouse in it and carried it outside, walked down the road a bit, and carefully released the mouse along a woody area. The mouse didn’t move for a minute or two, then realized it was free and ran into the woods.~