Simple living in the country - back to basics

Karmacat

That supermarket voucher to get cashback sounds amazing!  4.5% equivalent!  Definitely worth doing, I'll have to add that to my financial to do list.

As far as the passport is concerned ... it's usually at the longer end of that timescale.  My sister's been caught out twice by this, and each time its entailed a very early day in London with a wait till 4.30 to collect - exhausting and stressful.  And Berlin sounds wonderful at any time of year, though of course the Christmas markets are special.

EssexHebridean

Great heads up on the TCB voucher - thank you! I’ve done the supermarket voucher thing too and both the £2 and the ordinary cashback have already tracked. Also realised that if we are planning on shopping in a supermarket that they have vouchers for I might as well buy those again to get the cashback on a regular spend. 

Cheery_Daff

Yes, I thought that. We generally do Mr A for most food stuff. Got into habit of going to Mr M fairly regularly when we were getting the free covid vouchers, but wouldn't want to switch to main food shop there. Diesel, though,is well worth doing, especially if they have these regular extra cashback days, and we can pay with the credit card too. 

2nd lot of washing in and nearly ready. 

Trying to coordinate these tablets - 4 times a day, 2 hours after food, 1 hour before 😂 Not used to eating on such a strict schedule 😂

themadvix

Oooh, I’ve had those tablets - horrible! It’s like being on an enforced diet! Still, they worked…

Cheery_Daff

Hope they do! 

Second load of washing out, first one dry 😊 Hanging round in the hammock for a minute in the sunshine, although it's actually pretty windy and cold so I won't lie here for very long 😂 Been doing a bit of scything, might try for an hour of strimming later too, this is the only dry of the weekend I think.

EssexHebridean

Ha I nearly had a sit in the garden earlier - then realised that actually although it was sunny, it wasn’t quite warm enough to be sitting still out there for too long! I did manage to get a couple more plants placed where I think they might end up though…progress! 

Cheery_Daff

Progress indeed, well done! 

I didn't get any strimming done, but I did finish row 11 of scything and start row 12 😊 Getting there! For some reason it was going quite quickly yesterday, grass just the right type of damp I think.

Having a slow one this morning. Trapped another mouse overnight, so a little trip up to the lay-by on the moors to release it. I was going to mention it earlier, but then I figured someone would say "it's probably the same mouse that keeps coming back!", because someone ALWAYS says that 🙄😂

So I spent a happy hour or two delving into the actual scientific evidence (not pest control websites) 😂 Turns out there were quite a few scientists in the early 60s who spent quite a lot of time collecting mice and dispersing them to see where they went, including one paper that vividly described a scientist sitting atop a ladder on a golf course, in the dark, and lifting the cage off the top of a mouse (pulling it from his ladder-top position with string), then watching the mouse, which had a bit of tape on it with luminous paint on, with a pair of binoculars to see which direction it went in 😂

So, I learned some things, and obviously I'm not saying I read all the scientific evidence as clearly I didn't. House mice that live in the vicinity of humans don't travel very far - there doesn't seem to be evidence of them travelling more than about 25 metres in their normal range, although some do occasionally take 'excursions' (I'm imagining little mouse suitcases), mostly young males, and even then they don't go very much further.

Feral house mice (those who live outside, but close to buildings), travel a bit further, usually no more than about 110 metres.

Field mice might have slightly larger territories, but it changes with the availability of food, especially if they're living on food crops, which might then be harvested.

Mice can and do find their way home - they're VERY likely to do this if you release them within their home range (so if you catch one and release it in your garden). The likelihood of them making it back decreases the further away you take them, and the longest distance i saw any evidence for was about 1.2km, and then only for a very small number of mice in a single study (and not in the UK) - others seemed to say a max of 2700ft (about 823ft), and even then most of them didn't make it back from that distance.

There was lots of speculating in the 60s about whether mice had an innate homing compass, somewhat like birds, but that seems to have been dismissed from what I can gather. It seems to be that they mostly navigate by recognising elements of the area - which means that if you release them within their own home range, then of course they'll recognise things and come back to base. Further away, it's very unlikely they've been before, so they won't recognise anything, and several capture-relocate-recapture studies showed that of those who didn't head home, a large number were recaptured near the relocation site - meaning they basically just decided to live there instead, rather than making vast overland treks like in some kind of sentimental film. 

So, I shall continue to take my mice up to the mouse lay-by on the moors, and I shall assume that, as it is very unlikely any of them will have been travelling that distance themselves, they won't be familiar with it, and will therefore just stay around there. Which is cheerful, because there is plenty to eat, places to shelter, and it means that the four mice we have released in the last 3 days will likely now all be reunited with each other 😂

And now, I think it's probably about time I did something useful 😂

VintageHistorian

So what you're telling us Cheery is that you've accidentally set up a mouse breeding programme on the moor? XD

Karmacat

That's **very** useful, thank you for doing the research and summarising it.  Just shows that myths can get established about the oddest things.  Hope you're having a good day  

Cheery_Daff

VintageHistorian said:

So what you're telling us Cheery is that you've accidentally set up a mouse breeding programme on the moor? XD

Apparently yes 😂😂 They do of course have to take their chances with the predators - far more of those on the moors than in our house - but even I have a limit to the amount of mouse activity I can tolerate in the house...

Happy Wheel done, calling September at £52. Not much, but better up than down! 

My prolific is £30.60, Mr Cheery's £34 odd, and we're both checking diligently throughout today to nudge it up 😂 It's becoming nicely competitive - he was very annoyed at the start of the month when I was ahead, but has now realised than many of them require a laptop, and he's generally got mine open when I'm working (and don't always have time to look) so he's inching ahead 😂 He's decided it will be motivating to save for a specific thing, so his earnings are going in a separate pot to save for us a 'free' weekend away 😊 Mine, as usual, go into the general pots, currently being split between the bigger holiday fund and replacement wages.

1P won't get to payout, but I have made it to £19.45 so hopefully payout in October.

I also signed up to Opinium after seeing someone mention it (can't remember who, sorry!) - 50p on there now, payout at £25 so may be a while 😂

Also checked YouGov - remind me why we all do that again?! I need another 1645 points before payout, roughly 33 studies. I've been going since 2015 and haven't had a single payout yet (although I admit I didn't always do them in the middle). Not sure I'll start again once I've got to payout!

Will withdraw from both Prolific accounts tomorrow morning to see the final cleared total 😊