There was a little mouse in the house. My live traps just didn’t interest him partly because he has a tumor growing out the side of his face and the entry was too narrow against the growth. I went to the store and bought ordinary $2 mouse traps and after peanut butter didn’t work. Listened to the Youtube guy advocating tootsie rolls. Mouse was guillotined about as soon as he smelled the tootsie. I do prefer the live trap, prefer relocation but also prefer not living with a mouse (still have not figured out his point of entry). Had to think about the killing thing and my wish to relocate it and ask myself what’s the difference between killing a mosquito and killing a mouse or killing anything? Cells are killing cells they find invasive or territorial. Doesn’t life position all of life to kill? Does the madness all over Earth result from the normalcy of murder? Or is life’s madness the human invention of ethical thinking? Which artist might lead me out of this darkness? Elton John? Olivia Rodrigo? Or do they just keep things running the way it always did? Is this where David Byrne says I already wrote this song.
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I hear you, Bob. I question myself, too, when I kill a mosquito or a fly in my house. Actually this winter when the diamond flies have appeared, I’ve rescued a few that got their wings wet in the kitchen sink. Well, they don’t land on our food, so … and other things I rescue and put outside (not in winter), like spiders, do not sting us. Even moths, now, I catch and put outside (not in winter of course), when in years past I’d’ve hid my head under the bedcovers if there was one in the room at night. Now I’ll catch them in my bare hands! I don’t know what has happened to me. While I do not like killing anything anymore, if they are disease-spreaders (ticks) or causers of extreme itching (ticks), I dispose of them ruthlessly. Mice, too, have to go; can’t have them in the house. Outside, raccoons can’t be permitted to hang about as they do too much damage to buildings and we are not sure if they raise a ruckus in the barn too — something has been digging up the floor out there, making the cats’ water bowl dirty, and dragging things around. Right now we have a moose pruning our trees; she’s like a big dog, who was here last year for a couple weeks too. We have to watch carefully when we go out as one can never be sure what a wild animal will do, but we’re pretty thrilled she’s around. (Photos on my blog if you’re interested.) – Kate