Mice, in the kitchen! Yuck I hate it when they invade our main cooking space! So we set traps, and then have the task of disposing of the trapped and dead creatures. Or not dead, then ‘finishing them off’. I hate it all, every step of the process, the final step of which is the releasing of the dead body back to Nature …
That final step is the part that may bring some comfort to my mind, even if only a little. I don’t like to kill things. I watch out for ants that I know will be on my path down to our pond, stepping over the line they’ve made over time from so many ants tramping along to or from their nest not that many metres away.
And if I hit a bird when I am driving, I feel pain in my mind and heart, and I will slow down to avoid such a thing if I see the bird (or other creature) in time. So mice in the kitchen, hate them, but today? I was in the back yard, watering some of our plants by the swimming pool, and noticed something was making ripples in the pool. So I went and looked.
I was worried it maybe have been a baby snake, in which case I would have had to ‘get rid of it’, which would have entailed catching it and drowning it. The only snakes we ever get at our place are poisonous ones, and I suspect my husband is going to want to get in the pool for a swim when he gets home. Having a snake in the pool could lead to disaster, with a snake bite followed by urgent medical treatment to save his life!
Anyway, no such things had to happen, the creature that had caused the pool ripples was a tiny little mouse, swimming in the deep end of the pool. I looked at it, and it looked at me, its eyes pleading with me to save its life. A mouse, a creature we callously kill if they ever enter our house and are victim to the traps we set to kill them.
So what did I do? I reached over, and very gently grasped the mouse by the tail, and set it free, on the other side of the pool fence, away from the house. And I felt good about saving that little creature’s life, because I admired it’s bravery, and perseverance, paddling away the way it was.
So I will never know if that foolish mouse that fell in our pool might be the same foolish mouse that gets trapped in a trap in our house, but at least I have done it a favour at least once … Life and Nature can become extraordinarily confused at times, and that is why thinking on life is important, when such matters occur …
A life saved is a chance for better life choices to be taken … May that mouse be content to scurry around in the grass and plants outside, and stay away from both the pool, and our kitchen!
Carolyn Cordon - Creative 