Dinner, anyone?

Here in South Australia, I reckon the local councils can pretty much be judged on their attitudes to pet animals. Tea Tree Gully Council, for instance, under which our suburb comes, is very pro-dog, anti-cat: lots of places to walk dogs off lead, pet parks with jumps and hoops for your dog, council-run dog training classes, excellent facilities.... show them a cat on the other hand and their response is "lock it up, lock it up, spawn of satan, lock it up!" They haven't managed it yet, but there seems to be constant debates about whether cats should be allowed at all, and if so whether they shouldn't be kept totally contained and confined to a cage at all times to protect the native wildlife. Make a note of that bit coz I'm coming back to it in a moment!

Tea Tree Gully is separated from Campbelltown Council only by the glorious Linear Park, with the boundary line somewhere in the middle of the Torrens River - barely more than a stream at this stage, but over there, as far as I can make out, dogs are bad, cats are good, which means that anyone with any sense who wants their dog to have a nice walk crosses over to this side of the river and lets them run off lead, and I am constantly panicking that Bonny the Devil Dog will cross over the river after a duck or something, inadvertantly leaving me open to a large fine for having her off lead on the wrong side of the river!

Now, we have a cat and a dog, but I'm afraid our cat is never in her life going to a be a threat to local wildlife, in fact, she's been running her own native wildlife breeding programme, unbeknownst to us, in our kitchen! Yes, she's brought in a little native mouse, set it up in comfort and style somewhere (possibly behind the fridge!) where it's happily given birth to its own little brood, quietly and discretely until the last few days, when we noticed strange things happening.... the tin foil lining the grill tray was shredded into tiny pieces, and then the baking paper on one of my baking trays was ...errrrmm... how can I put this?.... decorated with small black mouse droppings! Yes, we have mice. Not living in the oven as such, but certainly paying it and the grill tray frequent visits, cleaning up any crumbs that may have been left, processing them through their little mouse bodies, and leaving the results in my oven!!! Ewwwwww, I never want to eat anything from there again!!!

Dreading the thought of dead mouse in the oven even more than mouse poo (well not more than, but god, the combination....!), I managed to buy a "humane" mouse trap which we duly baited with chocolate and put into the (unlit) oven last night. Two hours later, one trapped mouse, taken for a walk into the park and released. Reset and replaced the trap and this morning....result - two trapped mice! How many more of the things are there? OH has told me to check the trap today and if filled, to take the occupant into the park for release a good distance away (is there such a thing as a homing mouse?)

I already get strange looks when I take the dog out for a walk, and the cat trots along with us as far as the river, then waits for our return and runs out to greet us. Heaven knows what people are going to say now when they see me taking the dog, the cat, and a caged mouse out for a walk in the morning!

Anyone fancy a nice roast from my oven?