The Patter of VERY little feet

When I moved into my little cottage in North Carolina which had stood vacant for two years, I discovered vacant only referred to humans.  Immediately I found signs of mouse residents.  I love  mice--have a collection of  "mousy"  things--but not in the house: especially not in the kitchen!  My Siamese kitty, Carrie, seventeen years old when we came South, had no interest in the mice. The final insult was when I opened the drawer with my silverware and discovered a nest made of insulating material which had not been there the day before.  Inside the nest lay four wee pink baby mice. No sign of the mother, but she was likely not far away.  Still what could I do?  They could not stay there, and I just could not bring myself to dispatch them.  So I decided to let nature decide.  I put the nest containing the pinkies out on the lawn, hoping the mother might somehow find them and NOT bring them back in the house!  Nature decided their fate within minutes.  A Blue Jay swooped down from the nearby Dogwood tree.  I doubt those mice suffered-it was over so fast. I never wanted  to have to do that again, so I set live traps every evening and every trap had an adorable whisker-twitching mouse huddled inside each morning.   I carried the traps bearing the frightened creatures across the field and opened the traps in the brush near the creek.  In a flash they were out of sight.
This went on for days.  My son said I was catching and releasing the same mice over and over again.  I found it hard to believe they would come back from across the field.  So to find out for certain I got some food colors and the next morning when I had two captives, I dabbed color on their backs with a tiny paintbrush.  When it dried, I took them out and let them go.  Those two either never returned or somehow removed the color.  Eventually there were empty traps in the morning
and no more "calling cards" sprinkled on the stove top.
Living rodent free did not last long though.  After all, I lived in the middle of fields of corn, cotton and sweet potatoes.  Very shortly after harvest those mice recalled a warm house for winter and moved back in.  I had to once again resume the trap setting and mouse deporting.
Well meaning friends said why didn't I use glue traps (those are horrible-I have heard of mice who were stuck, chewing their feet off in order to escape!).  Or even old-fashioned guillotine traps?  Much as I hated the mess those mice made, I could not bring myself to set a kill trap.  So I continued to live trap, however, I now took the prisoners across the creek and released them in the field near my son's house.
He had two good mousing type cats, which would soon discourage any mice who might think his house was shelter.