The Battle of Thumb Butte

When you boondock for an extended period of time your RV, being stationary for a long period, can become the target of small gray furred hitchhikers.  Back when I was still in the Tank a field mouse had invaded it's interior spaces and it took me 4 days to trap it.  So, after I moved north from the BLM land I had been on for 14 days to the Prescott National Forest outside of Prescott, AZ (review coming) you can imagine my dismay when the first night camping I heard the pitter patter of little feet inside the Mini's lower cabinets.  I've unfortunately become adept at identifying the sound of a field mouse within an RV so I knew I had to get to Walmart and buy a mouse trap -- by now you'd think I'd be carrying a supply!

Mouse traps have changed in design since back in my day.  (Build a better mouse trap?)  The ones I got from Walmart looked roughly the same as the old days but had the addition of a yellow plastic pressure plate that, when depressed by the animal going for the bait, releases the spring loaded bar that zaps the mouse.

Put the bait on the back of the pressure plate, mouse steps on it, blamo!

I was successful using crunchy peanut butter as bait against the Tank's mouse so I went that route again and upped my game by pushing a half a walnut into the peanut butter to make it more irresistible.  Since I heard the mouse scampering all over in the Mini's lower cabinets I placed the baited trap into a bottom drawer and waited in anticipation to hear the tell tale snap that would announce my hitchhiker was no longer of this world.  I finally got tired and went to bed having not heard anything from the trap drawer however once in bed I heard the mouse running around for most of the night.

Getting up the next morning to silence (mice are nocturnal so I'm sure it was sleeping) I opened the trap drawer AND...

Licked clean!

the trap was completely clean of bait, including walnut, and was still set!  Round one to Mickey!  Having almost taken my finger off several times due to the hair trigger nature of the pressure plate the only thing I could theorize was that the mouse had approached from the side of the trap, completely missing the pressure plate and enjoying his free meal at my expense -- it didn't even leave a tip!

I re-baited the trap and put it back in the drawer thinking how lucky the mouse had been to unwittingly approach the trap from the side and assuring myself it couldn't do that twice.  About 3 am that morning I was awoken by the trap going off and thought my problem was taken care of.  I was too lazy to get up and check the trap figuring it'd wait until the morning but instead experiencing silence a bunch of thumping started coming from the trap drawer.  The mouse was still very much alive and seemingly dragging the trap around the drawer bumping into barbecue utensils I had stored in it.  I reluctantly got up, turned on the interior lights, armed myself with a steak knife and opened the drawer.  Instead of finding a partially trapped mouse it's fur was stuck in the trap and, upon seeing me it clanged the trap against a barbecue spatula got free and turned into a gray blur jumping out of the drawer into the back of the cabinets.  This guy was good!  Mickey takes round 2!

The next morning I re-baited the trap for the third time ( running low on walnuts) and, to speed up this story, Mickey's luck ran out.  This time he must have stepped squarely on the pressure plate and it looked like a very clean kill, ending things without too much suffering.  I have a picture of his demise but as this is a family blog I'll refrain from including it in this posting.

Thus the three day Battle of Thumb Butte (where the battle took place) came to a conclusion.  I'm now carrying a trap as part of the Mini's standard load out although I know I'll never be able to keep walnuts in stock because I'll eat them myself.

Thanks for reading!