We have been dealing with a plethora of cards at our house recently.

One type of card is the kind that comes with a layer of sticky glue applied to its top side. They are used to catch mice and the occasional careless stocking.

If you live in the country, it’s inevitable that mice will invade your domicile at this time of year. They do so without so much as a “captain may I?” or “by your leave.”

Their attitude seems to be, “Nice place you got here! Good and warm and plenty of food. I think I and a few dozen of my closest pals will move in for the winter. You’ll hardly notice that we’re here. By the way, I personally had nothing to do with those chunks of dry cat food that you found in your underwear drawer.”

Mice were recently making their annoying presence known, mostly with annoying scratching and scurrying sounds that wake you in the middle of the night and keep you from falling back asleep. My wife purchased a large quantity of glue traps, and I set them in areas where it seemed likely that there would be lots of mouse traffic. A good example of this would be areas where there are mouse sized stoplights.

There is an art and a science to trapping mice on glue cards. I sprinkle a few crumbles of cold cereal in the center of each trap. The mouse saunters along, notices the cereal and thinks to himself, “Wheaties! They’re the breakfast of champions and, by golly, I’m a champ!”

The mouse soon finds himself in a very sticky situation. My wife, upon learning of this via the mouse’s loud squeaks — mouse profanity, I believe — will say to me, “Could you please get rid of that yucky old mouse?”

To her, all mice are yucky and old. I agree with the yucky part but can’t speak for the age issue. It’s possible that some of the mice we catch are middle aged or perhaps even young.

Our cat, Sparkles, is the official mouser at our farm. She is mostly an outdoor cat when the weather is pleasant and does what she can regarding the autumn mouse invasion. We know this because she will leave her grisly prizes right outside our front door where we can’t help but trip over the ghastly corpse.

Sparkles is old enough in cat years to be on Social Security. She will never see any benefits, though. That’s her own fault for never paying a single dime into the system.

In any event, Sparkles seems to take the attitude that the indoor mouse situation is my problem. She is happy to passively superintend my efforts from the sidelines. This is fine by me because I’d much rather deal with a sticky mouse than a mangled one.

The other kind of cards we have been dealing with have been much more pleasant.

Ever since I began to share the news about my health problems, I have received “get well” cards from far and wide. It has been more fun than my birthday and Christmas combined.

Many of the cards wish me a speedy recovery and many of them are written by people who also say that I am in their prayers. This has been very humbling and gratifying and totally unexpected. I also feel a little embarrassed, but in a good way.

Each of the cards contains a handwritten note of some sort. It gives me hope that the fine art of letter writing hasn’t become totally extinct.

Kay and Keith, who hail from Granite Falls, Minnesota, have sent several cards over the past few months. Each of them contains a note wishing me well along with inspirational verses and sayings.

A lady named Christine, who calls herself a transplant from Toledo, Ohio, recently sent a card and a note. She also included a photo of some of my columns that she has cut from the local newspaper and shared with her neighbors. Good to know that folks still want to make the most of their literary dollars.

The number of people who wrote to say that they enjoy my weekly noodlings is humbling. I had no idea. But that’s how we are here in the Midwest: if you’re doing a decent job, you don’t hear a peep. It’s only when you stumble — say, by letting mice invade your house — do you get complaints.

I want to thank everyone who sent me a card or an email. I’m doing much better now, so all of those well wishes must be working, like glue traps stemming the autumn invasion of mice.

— Jerry’s book, “Dear County Agent Guy” can be found at www.workman.com and in bookstores nationwide.