High pitched squeak told me that one of the Cats had caught something and brought it in the house. DH wasn't around, and I was hoping that it was going to be something I could deal with, like a mouse, and not something that would make me go all girly like a "Big Mouse".
Helpfully, Izzy had let it go in the hall, so I shut the hall door to prevent It getting into the kitchen and the living room. I then joined her in the hall. The Cats like hunting in pairs, and Izzy was quite happy to drop back to let me try and get It out from the stuff under the stairs. This meant she was poised and ready to leap on It if it managed to escape my grasp.
Our under-stairs is open, it's where we put our pushbikes. Today though, it also had three 20kg bags of chicken feed in front of the bikes, waiting to be put away. I hoiked them over to the other side of the hall. Then I fished out a couple of pairs od shoes belonging to DH. And then his beekeeping suit (we're using jackets only now). Then I could move out the bikes, into the kitchen.
Fortunately it wasn't a mouse, and it definitely wasn't a BigMouse, although it was a largeish rodent. It looked like a small mole. It managed to slip through my fingers a couple of times. I got the hand-held Dyson Pet Vac thing out while I was down there and hoovered up some rather impressively sized dust bunnies. And then I vacuumed around the sewing machine (which also lives under there) and whatever heavy piece of kit DH had parked undfer there some months ago temporarily.
It dashed past me, and past Izzy who had got bored of watching me and wasn't really paying as much attention as she should. Down the hall, and into the Corner. I sighed, and followed it.
Of course it picked the Corner. We have a plant on a plant stand, our Roomba, the charger for the PetVac; next to it there is a large wicker basket which contains kindling and upon which was a mountain of stuff that was ejected from DH's car recently and was awaiting rehoming. I started to move the stuff around, and again I missed catching It. As I'd now excavated the Corner, I decided I might as well vacuum up the dust bunnies lurking there too. I contemplated tackling DH's Pile Of Stuff, but I couldn't work up the enthusiasm.
Izzy was on the stairs by this time, presumably disappointed that I wasn't taking this more seriously.
I've no idea where It is at the moment. I've left the hall door shut and I've come here to try and find out what it is.
It's body shape, size and fur looks very much like some of the pictures of shrews that I've found; but there are other pictures of shrews which have completely different fur and very pointy noses, which this chappy doesn't have.
I do hope I manage to catch It and release it before the Cats get it. If it was a HouseMouse (which we don't have) then I probably would be glad that the Cats were doing their job, but it isn't. It's a little thing from Outside that had the misfortune to meet Izzy this morning, and I'd like to save it.
