I was tending to the chickens yesterday when I notice the dogs intent on something around the broken chicken cage stuffed with old deer netting.

I walked over and pulled the netting out of the cage, fearing a copperhead and expecting a mouse nest.  There was nothing.

Just as the observation sank in, I felt an unusual tickling in the middle of my back and reached behind to get it off me!!! but there wasn’t anything back there.

I pulled my hand back and looked at it.  Maybe whatever it was had jumped on my hand?  Nope.  Empty. My eye moved up my forearm and there, sitting on my elbow, was a young mouse.

Now what? The dogs are dancing about me because they’ve spotted it.  Mice are a pest and the practical thing to do would be to flick it off and either crush it underfoot or let the dogs have at it.

But I couldn’t do that.  Instead I took it to a patch of tall grass and let it go.