Eeek!

Around 5:30 on Saturday morning, Freckles began an odd little routine. She ran upstairs, jumped up on my bed, batted her paws at my legs, jumped back off the bed, ran downstairs. She did this four or five times before I decided to give up on sleep. I turned the light on during an on-the-bed stage of the procedure and found that she wasn't batting at my legs, she was batting at a DEAD MOUSE. A DEAD MOUSE. ON MY BED. Sadly for Freckles, she didn't get the praise that I'm sure she was expecting this feat to bring. I shreaked, she took her prize back downstairs, I followed her (having carefully checked my slippers before putting them on), stole her precioussssss, and chucked what was once a really adorable little creature (the mouse, not Freckles, although on second thought Freckles didn't seem quite as adorable at 5:45 on Saturday morning as she had when I went to bed on Friday night) unceremoniously into the garbage bin on the porch. I'm not sure which bit of knowledge is more discomfiting, that there was a DEAD MOUSE on my bed, or that, before it was dead, there was a mouse LIVING somewhere in my cabin. I'm not so hardened by my 7 months in the mountains that I don't find both thoughts upsetting.