Rats, Mice, & Snakes: The Will to Live

The dozer working in the Christine Marie mine.

 
           It was a particularly bad day. First, the Scout would not start. Then, I was working on the road with the loader about 5 switchbacks down from the cabins above when I lost control of the right track. I had to climb to the top to get some tools only to find when I got back to the loader I did not have all the tools I needed. After several trips up and down with more tools I figured out the break slave cylinder was stuck causing the track to freeze. By this time it was too late to do any work. No jasper today!

            The mice were not particularly bad this year but it was time to set up a bucket trap anyway (see my blog post about a better mouse trap). I looked around at my supply of buckets and discovered I did not have a bucket without a hole or crack in the bottom. I had begun drilling holes in the bottom of the buckets to make them easier to pull apart after stacking them together. Also, continually filling them with rocks tends to crack the bottoms. Anyway, I did not have a bucket that would hold water to drown the mice when they fell in. I made the trap and resolved that I would have to take care of the mice every morning.

            Sitting in my cabin after dark, feeling exhausted and depressed with the day’s events, I watched an energetic mouse let its desire for the peanut butter on the string overcome its sense of danger and fall into the bucket. The mouse scurried around the bottom of the bucket and tried to climb the bucket walls every way it could. It would stand at the bottom of the bucket wall and jump up the side as far as it could scratching at the smooth plastic wall before falling in a heap at the bottom. I had placed the bucket in the corner on the ground but it was not quite level. Because the bucket sides are tapered one side of the bucket was slightly less steep than the other. The mouse discovered this after numerous attempts to climb the walls, but by this time it was exhausted and laid quietly in the bottom of the bucket for 10 or 15 minutes. It started again. The mouse approached the side of the bucket that was less steep, jumped, and clawed at the plastic wall to no avail. It rested again. It ran across the bottom of the bucket, jumped up to the wall, and pushed off the wall propelling itself a little higher and a little closer to the paper hanging down at the top. The mouse did this 5 or 6 times before falling silent. I thought it gave up. Much to my surprise it tried this again sometime later. This time I saw the paper flicker as one of its front feet touched the paper stretched across the top of the bucket. A little later it tried again -- the paper bent slightly more towards the bottom of the bucket. Then silence.  The mouse was nearing the end of its endurance.  It hooked a claw on the paper pulling it down where its other front foot found a hold on the edge of the paper, and it scrambled out never to be seen again.

            I decided it had been a pretty good day after all. The sun had played tag with big white fluffy clouds all day, and it was not too hot for my many climbs up the hill. Maybe there would be some jasper tomorrow.

Here are some polished pieces of Christine Marie Morrisonite.