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Farm House Mouse Stories

Farm House Mouse Stories The Mystery of the Hazelnut Stash in the Harpsichord and the Over Night Disappearance of Ten Pounds of Fresh Chestnuts Lex Loeb Contributor Network . A wooden bowl full of raw hazel nuts in the shell was empty in the farm house living room. Everyone forgot there that there were hazelnuts there. No one noticed that the nuts were missing. Later someone went to play the harpsichord in the living room. Putting finger pressure on the keys, it was not sounding right. The top of the the harpsichord was lifted. Inside on top of the stings was the complete collection of all the missing hazelnuts that had gone unnoticed as missing. Who put the hazelnuts in the harpsichord and why? A cleaning lady initially got the blame but she denied having had any reason to do something stupid like that. Later it was discovered that mice had found a way from the sub-floor into the living room by finding a way though sub floor cracks under kitchen cabinets though drawers where they had made nests. The mice were also living in condominiums carved out of cellophane covered packages of toilet paper which they loved to tear up to make fluffy bedding with. The toilet paper was stored high up shear vertical shelves in the garage. The mice found their way up there in what would seem an impossible feat for humans to do. The hazel nuts are about a fifth of the size of these mice so how did the mouse get five pounds of nuts up into the harpsichord? Could have been more than one mouse? Not likely. This was more likely the work of one single mouse. Did it take him days or weeks to move all the nuts? A couple of years later, Ten or more pounds of big fresh raw chestnuts were left in the garage overnight in a open wire basket because they needed drying after washing before being refrigerated. The basket of nuts was full and by 2:00 am. at 10:00 am mysteriously every single nut in the ten pound basket was gone. Was there a squirrel living in the garage again? No squirrel. No cleaning lady to blame. There was no sign of nuts or nut shells anywhere, just the empty wire basket. The hazel nuts in the harpsichord came to mind. Where were the all those nuts that took so much time and effort to collect? Unlike the hazelnuts these were going to be eaten and not left as decoration in the living room. Looking around the garage there was no trace until getting up on a ladder almost all the nuts were found on a shelf over 6 ft off the ground deposited in old easter baskets filled with pink and green plastic easter basket straw. The shelf was behind a cabinet door that was closed. The nests up on the self were definitely attributed to small mice , not rats or squirrels. Some little bastard mouse moved all ten pounds in a few hours from the basket to 6 ft vertical shelves behind a cabinet door ruining a perfect cache of nuts. The nuts had to be collected and rewashed for personal consumption. Leaving them on the shelf for the mouse would have meant many more smart little bastard mice to do the same thing in future years. This time it seemed like a good time to try to catch the guilty culprit on video tape. A video camera on a tripod was rigged to run about six hour straight. The lights were left on in the garage and the nuts were put back in the basket again to see exactly what happened. This time no mouse! Did not like the lights on ? Did not want to be a you tube star? The same chestnuts just sat there. Nothing got recorded on video tape. These chestnuts were up to half the size of the mouse who moved them such a long distance across the concrete floor and straight up into the cabinet. It would have been wonderful catching the mouse in the act and seeing exactly how the mouse did it. The mouse must have been mad that all his work stealing the nuts in the first place was for nothing? Maybe it was the lights being left on that tipped him off that the video camera was running. Horse chestnuts were substituted for the better chestnuts. Maybe the mice know that horse chestnuts taste like rancid soap? Squirrels will eat horse chestnuts but prefer chestnuts. Some day the mouse will get caught on tape moving what would be the equivalent of a few tons of giant rocks moved by a human. A human can move a lot of rocks in a short period of time but probably can not compete with the deer mouse if scaled down to deer mouse size. The mystery is solved but it would still be nice to have video proof. .

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