behind the screen

I've mentioned a few times that Atticus is a great hunter. He gets mice, birds, the occasional rat… and they all stay outside.

We hope that if there was ever a mouse inside the house that he would also catch it. I don't want to think about that.

I prefer they stay on the other side of the screen doors.

This morning I cleaned up a few things and found a few things that needed to go up to the attic. We have been keeping the door closed to the room that has the attic access because that is the guest room currently under construction. I went into the room and headed up to the attic.

There are a few things sitting on the stairs to the attic, one of them being the vacuum cleaner that we just used on Saturday.

Mere inches from the vacuum was the body of a dead mouse.

I happened to spot it as I was halfway up the stairs.

I typically check for bugs.

Not mice.

There was a mouse.

I got to the top of the stairs and did my I-just-found-something-bad-and-don't-want-to-walk-by-it dance. It involves shrieking, moving feet around in an odd sort of tip-toe dance, and flailing of the arms.

Peeking back over the edge of the stairs, I made sure it hadn't moved and was actually dead. Then, risking life and limb I ran back down the attic stairs, jumped into the bedroom, slammed the door shut and sprinted out into the hallway closing the bedroom door behind me.

Someday I will have to take a picture of the attic stairs so you can understand just how risky that was.

When Bill got home, after a different risk involving ice buckets (I'll post that video later), he took care of the mouse.

I hope that if a mouse ever ventures inside these walls again, Atticus finds it and takes care of it.

I'm still a little shaky from the escapade.

 I'm very thankful for Bill.