At a quarter past midnight when I was just about to go to bed, I noticed Nysse in my bedroom, which is unusual for him, and behaving oddly on top of that.

A closer look showed the reason: he was playing with a mouse that he had brought inside.

The mouse was physically unharmed, but probably panicking, of course. Nysse wanted to play and sort of softly batted the mouse about, not particularly aggressively at all. The mouse tried to flee a few times, but mostly stayed as still as possible. At one point it ran into the folds of my morning robe and Nysse, who had been looking the other way, basically lost him.

I ran to the kitchen and grabbed a plastic jar with a lid, hoping desperately to get back before Nysse lets the mouse flee again and it goes into hiding under my bed or something like that. Ran back again and saw the mouse in relative safety in the corner of the room, in a freeze response. It didn’t even react when I put the jar over it – like I’d do with a wasp or a spider – and slid the lid underneath. Easier than catching a wasp, actually.

Snapped a quick photo and released it into the garden. Then threw Nysse out as well a couple of minutes later, because he was still in a hunting mood and was running around and looking for things to attack. By that time the mouse seemed to have disappeared.

The season’s second mosquito, already. I guess this is in line with birds not eating at the feeder any more – there are juicier meals out there.

Plenty of snow has brought plenty of birds to the feeder. This year it’s mostly blackbirds, with only occasional visits from others.

Blackbirds are not good at sharing. The main feeder is a four-sided construction, and there’s easily room for four large birds. Do they use it that way? No. Usually I see at most two birds eating, with a whole bunch hanging around and waiting for their turn: some on the feeder stand, others on the clothes drying rack, even more in the trees nearby. They don’t even wait nicely – instead they interrupt each other and chase each other away.

It started snowing heavily yesterday and kept going all night. The weather service issued red alerts due to heavy snow and heavy wind, telling people in some areas to avoid driving completely. Not just “stay home if possible” but more like “stay at home because emergency services won’t be able to reach you”. Up to 50 cm of snow was promised in some places, and with strong winds it will pile into deep drifts that you just can’t drive through.

The worst hit parts were two or three hundred kilometres north of here – not that far on a Swedish scale. Down here it didn’t get that bad (we only got yellow warnings, later upgraded to orange) but we still got plenty of snow.

It’s a giant hassle for everyone who needs to get to places, and for those who need to clear the streets, but I love it. I don’t mind shovelling the snow. I love the way the world is bright and light all of a sudden. It feels like real winter, instead of that dreary gray limbo we had in December.

And it’s brought so many more birds to our feeder!

Nysse was snuck out just as we came in from looking at all the fireworks and didn’t come home all night. I was worried.

Then at like four o’clock in the morning someone started yanking on the front door, loud enough to wake me. What kind of idiot tries to break into a house at this time? Some drunkard who’s gotten lost? No, Morris the neighbour cat. He knows how door handles work, and had the door not been locked, it would have opened for him.

The noise annoyed me enough that I let him in. In the morning he went out but later came back again and actually stayed for cuddles. Maybe his family is away celebrating New Year elsewhere?

Nysse is not in the habit of bringing home his kills. Prey are for hunting, and playing, but not for hoarding, or asking to be praised.

I don’t know what was different about today’s dead mouse. For some reason he brought it into the house and then played with it on the bedroom carpet. When he was done, he just left it. Luckily he didn’t get messy with it.

I guess prey are not for eating, then. Makes me wonder who has been eating all the other mice and rats he’s caught.

(This one ended up in the garbage bin.)

Photos hidden in case you’re squeamish, click here to view.

Today’s surprise: mice.

I had noticed before that a bag of sunflower seeds had been chewed up in one corner, but, not seeing any other danger signs, assumed that that was that. Maybe a mouse got in, ate some of it, and then left again.

As I was moving the boxes around and looking inside to see what’s what, I discovered that the mice had gotten into all sorts of places. Chewed things, made nests in boxes with clothes, built caches of sunflower seeds. I had to go through every single box to remove the sunflower seeds and mouse poop, and the flakes of paper and plastic and fabric that they’d used to build nests. Plus try to save what could be saved by washing and wiping off, and throw out that which was too badly chewed or too smelly.

This was totally not what I had planned for my vacation.

In two boxes, I was met by live mice when I opened the box. I don’t know who was more surprised, me or the mice.

Nysse, good boy that he is, went into instant hunting mode. He quickly caught at least two of the mice that were loose in the basement, and one that I managed to dump outside. Then he kept guard and patrolled the basement for the rest of the evening. I’ll be bringing him back here daily to keep at it.

I didn’t want to take a break at this stage. Better to clear out all their hiding places and food caches as soon as possible, so that I don’t miss anything. I worked until close to midnight.

A deer with a kid came by today again. I hope it’s an entirely different deer than the one we saw last time with two kids, and not that she’s lost one of them.

This baby is growing up, in any case. Eating clover instead of just suckling, and running ahead of mum occasionally, instead of pitifully trying to keep up.