Murder Mystery

Well perhaps "murder" is a bit too strong. But I do have a mystery on my hands. And it involves death.

The other evening I was setting up my 10" telescope in preparation for a Jupiter observing event when I spotted this on the garage floor:

Now anyone who lives in the country expects to have mice about. And given that we store our bird food in the garage it is no surprise that mice would found in there. Furthermore, the garage provides plenty of places for mice to find shelter from the cold and wet that winter brings. So mice in the garage were pretty much a given. And mice die, thus finding a dead mouse isn't all that surprising.

I felt bad for the little fellow. But as there was nothing I could do I scoped him up and rather unceremoniously tossed her into the woods.

And then I spotted this one. In a different part of the garage.

You don't see it in the image but this one had the strange same gray areas that the first had. I noticed them when I lifted this one for its journey into the woods. Curious.

We've lived here for a year and a half and these are the first two dead mice we've discovered.

One dead mouse, no big deal. Two dead mice. In the same half hour? Hmmm ...

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That was six days ago. Since then there have been no more dead rodents discovered in the garage or anywhere else on the property. So maybe it was just an unlucky coincidence. Or maybe it was that cat which has recently been seen about the property again. Or maybe the mice got into something they shouldn't have, paying dearly for it. I going with just a coincidence for now. But I'll keep a weather eye never the less.

To be continued?