Thayer and I were watching TV tonight when we heard a really strange noise.  It was a strange repeated metallic 'plink'.  This was not the first time that our nighttime television was interrupted by strange noises- remember woodrat?  So Thayer went to investigate and as he was about to climb the stairs, he discovered the source of the noise. 

This little mousie was cleaning all the bait (organic nutella) off our used mousetraps.  We had piled them up on the stairs, ready to go up to the bedroom, where we've been catching tons of mice.  He was so stunned by the flashlight that Thayer was holding that I was able to scoop him up into a tupperware.

I walked him over to a nearby unoccupied cabin, hoping that he would make that his new home.  He'll probably just show up again in a few days..... oh, well.

[T- he was a really tiny little guy.  Maybe that's why he was so gullible.
  In other animal sightings news, when we were coming back from Gunnison on Tuesday as I was driving the dirt road from Mount CB to Gothic, it was snowing a little and the road was all white.  Jessica, who was looking out hte window, noticed a round black thing sitting in the snow on the side of the road and made me pull over.  It was a baby porcupine!  It was a little guy, only about the size of a basketball (N Am. porcupines get over three feet long and can weigh up to 40 pounds!).  He was a little leery of us, and kept turning to display his quilly butt to us, but when we split up and each stood several feet to either side of him, he got a little less cautious.  He stood up and turned and looked at each of us, and then decided to (unbelievably clumsily) make his way down the hill off the road.  His tail was still really little, it looked like a Glyptodon tail and hadn't achieved the big dragging paddle shape of adult porcupines.  He almost rolled down the hill at one point, we were amazed he could even stay on his feet, he waddled so badly.  We didn't have the camera though.  Bully on us, eh?]