Mouse catching

We arrived home from work this evening, hoping that the little mouse was in the live trap.

I carefully untaped the cupboard doors and removed the trap.

Nope. No mouse.

I shone a light beside the basket and there he was. Still sitting in the corner of the cupboard.

We decided to try and catch him with a glass. A friend at work said he had done that twice and it was pretty easy. He said the mice never even tried to run away. Our plan was to get him under a glass, and then slide it along the shelf to the front, and slide him into a small cardboard box.

So I blocked off the other half of the cupboard to minimize the area he could run in, and started to pull the basket away.

He didn't like that, and quickly scurried in behind it.

By now, my sister inlaw and her daughter dropped by to watch.

My wife placed a large plastic recycling bin on the kitchen counter, beneath the cupboard, just in case he hopped out of the cardboard. He would then land inside the plastic bin.

I was standing on a step stool, and I was nervous as hell that this little critter would get away. So my hand was shaking. That was kinda funny.

I removed the basket. The mouse didn't like that, and ran back and forth at the back of the cupboard. He stopped in his corner. I reached in slowly with the glass... he scurried around again. At one point he even ran toward me. He settled down again in the corner and I tried again. After three or four more attempts, I had mouse under glass.

Sliding the glass wasn't as easy because his little tail kept getting caught. He even squeaked at one point. Eventually I got it at the edge of the shelf.

My sister inlaw decided to help out. She was going to help close one flap on the box, while I closed the other, and my wife held the box up for us.

On a count of three, I pulled the glass off the edge and into the box he dropped.

We closed it up and I went out for a much needed smoke. :)

My kids and I walked up to the woods up near the school to release him.

Could that mouse ever move! AND jump! A second or two after the box was tipped over, he bolted out, hopped into the woods and continued hopping a foot at a time, and I swear he jumped about a foot in the air for a distance of two feet just before he was out of sight.

THAT'S what I was afraid he'd do from the cupboard.

By the time we got back, my wife had cleaned and disinfected the cupboard. I had a can of expanding spray foam, and I sprayed it into the small hole that we suspect was the route to the top of the cupboards.

Hopefully he was the one and only mouse we had. And hopefully we don't see anymore.