Cats, all seven of of them are useless when it comes to mice. They know there are occasional mice who venture into the house, but they are the worst mousers ever. They occasionally catch a bold one that jumps into their mouth, but they insist on playing with it until it escapes.

Today was the first chilly day of the year with temperatures down into the 40s. The heat, of course, failed. I am beginning to hate my Peerless Pinnacle. It fails once a year, at least, and requires fed-exing an expensive part from a warehouse in Pennsylvania.

The error was E18 and the blower fan made terrible noises. They use an odd sized, odd shaped screw type that I don’t have a driver for, so I could not take the blower apart. I reached my finger into the inlet hole (with the power off) and felt some kind of string thing and I tried to push it against the side of the inlet and drag it back (the inlet was too small to get my hand in to pinch it). I pulled it a little way out and felt – wait for it – fur! The string I felt was the tail.

I had to make a hook out of a piece of wire and snag the thing. It was a nice fat, freshly dead mouse.

The heat is now on and working. The mouse is tossed into the bushes as a warning to other mice. I am contemplating the best way to make a screen to keep the mice out of the furnace.