Three days.  Three days I used a conventional, death dealing, finger smashing, mouse trap.  First, I tried peanut butter.  And I'm not talking Jif, this was the good stuff: natural, creamy, ok this is a family blog so...I wanted something good to entice this mouse away from what little seeds were now left.  Well, it worked.  The mouse loved it, and went back to its home with a full belly.  Day two and three involved Feta cheese, which also helped the mouse into slumber by way of a full stomach. 

I couldn't take it any longer.  I kinda felt bad about using the death trap anyway and my drawing at the end of my last post almost made me like the mouse.  Ok, not really, I didn't want to drive out to "the store" and have to buy some other kind of mouse trap.  So after a little looking around on the interwebs, (search words: Homemade Mouse Trap) I came up with the plan that caught the mouse within a couple of hours.  Reread that.  Hours.  Not days. Hours. And it was unharmed. Ok, now read on:

What You'll Need:

1. A paper tube (toilet paper tube works great, or you can use a rolled up sheet of paper that's been taped together)
2. A tall, plastic tub or trash can
3. Bait.  I used chocolate and more Feta cheese.

Now the set-up

1. Flatten the bottom of the tube, and place the bait in one end of the tube.

2 A. If you have a shelf available where you've seen the mouse or evidence of the mouse, set the empty half of the tube on the shelf and the baited half, off the shelf, above the plastic can.

2 B. If you don't have a shelf, build a ramp out of cardboard (a pizza box is good for this) or something similar (a stack of books was suggested as well).

3. The rest is up to gravity.  As the mouse runs in the tube to retrieve the bait, the weight of the mouse tips the tube into the plastic bin.  End of story!  Here's the way it should look:

This worked great for me.  And the mouse.  I had to improvise a bit on my layout but the premise was the same.  Get the mouse to run in to the tube.  Here's a photo of my trap.

And here's the offender, awaiting his fate.

I felt pretty good that this fat little....mouse was still alive.  It was very scared.  I drove it out to the country, Indian Fort Mountain (Berea, KY) actually, and let the little fella go.  All I had with me was my phone's camera, so the picture isn't the best.  Good bye mouse!