The field mice are back

And they brought their body guards.

We haven't see hide nor hair of any mouse since mid-summer. Must have been some sort of family vacation. But apparently they're back, and they brought in some reinforcements. Some muscle men to do reconnaissance.
A few nights ago I saw the largest mouse I've ever seen in my life. He was HUGE! I thought I might have been mistaken and that he was a rat, but no. He definitely had all the mouse facial features.
I pulled out the trusty rusty wonderful have-a-heart trap which we borrowed from our wonderful neighbor way too long ago to still be polite, and baited it with some peanut butter. Historically this has not worked to catch mice in my household. I actually never caught anything in it at all. Anything with hair, that is. I did get a banana slug once.
At any rate, down it went on the floor, in just the path I saw the mouse skitter (which was more like lumber). The next evening I was walking through the kitchen and noticed that I had gotten the mouse. It was curled up into a terrified little mouse ball in the corner. Unfortunately for the mouse I had totally forgotten I had baited and set the trap, and so he had to sit in that trap for who knows how long before I saw him and then through last night and then to this morning when I could take him down to scotts valley with me.
Sorry, Scotts Vally folks, your mouse population is about to explode.
I had gone through all that trouble to bait a trap and get a mouse humanely so I could drive it all the way to scotts valley to let him go in an incredibly human gesture, and as I stepped out the front door this morning I noticed there was another one right in front of the kitchen door. A gift from one of our fluffy friends. Must have been tigger, actually, because kitten would have devoured it.

I'm gonna do some research to figure out what exactly this breed of "mouse" is. The one on the porch was even bigger than the one in the trap! Incredible.