How did that get in there???

WARNING: THIS IS A GROSS POST

Tuesday, I clean out our shed and found a couple of mouse nests. I pulled out a bucket from a harvest basket and found 3 pairs of little mouse eyes looking at me. I was proud of myself for only screaming a little bit and carrying the basket outside to let the mice go free. As I watched them scamper away, I thought, "that was dumb, now they are just going to build a nest somewhere else". I got everything cleaned out and tried to start the lawn mower, but was unsuccessful. Since we just bought the mower 2 years ago, I thought this was odd for a new mower to be having so much trouble. When I had rolled it out of the freshly cleaned shed, I little mouse came running off it. I just figured he'd crawled up in there after I had disturbed its nests. Apparently, it had done a lot more than that. I had Matt start the mower this morning before he left for work because I hadn't been able to get it started before. He had a lot of trouble getting it started too and at one point, I looked down and said, "hmm that looks like stuff is coming out of it from a mouse nest, but how would it get up in the engine block." He made no response and got it started eventually. I was running it throw the garden, chopping up the old corn stocks when suddenly, a dead, hairless, baby mouse fell out of the engine block. "OH GROSS!" I thought and then the engine died on a pile of stocks. I noticed the the engine was smoking a bit and when I went to investigate, I saw mouse fur hanging out the other side of the engine. I knew immediately why we had been having so much trouble getting the dumb thing started. Of course Matt was half way to work by now so guess who got to figure out how to take an engine cover off (I am now a master with a socket wrench) and clean out dead, mouse parts and nest???? Yep, its me! (Told you this was gross.) Now I took pictures of this event so don't scroll down if you are squeamish. I just had to show the world what an amazing woman I am because seriously...how many women do you know would do this?

If you look closely, you can see nesting material and brown mouse hair right above the exhaust pipe. You have to take the plastic protective cover off before you take the metal cover off the engine block. You will need 3 different socket sizes if you ever have to do this yourself.

And here was the problem...if you look closely on the right side of the nest you will see a tail in the air and the remains of Mrs. Mouse. I'm gagging just thinking about the whole thing.