Gotcha, you tricksy little bastard.

Since declaring jihad on the local packrat population for chewing up the Jeep’s wiring, I’ve offed about half a dozen and now the count has dropped to nothing. There has been some of what the government so delicately calls “collateral damage,” two birds and three or four mice.

They never will be missed, but I haven’t targeted mice for the same reason I haven’t tried to pick up every grain of dirt in the desert. But last night I set out to kill one in particular. Every night I set a rat trap under the Jeep’s hood in hope of finally dispatching my nemesis, and except for that one bird the trap comes up empty every morning. But for the past three nights something has eaten the peanut butter out of it. I figured a particularly light-pawed mouse had found it, so last night I set a mouse trap in there right next to the rat trap. The rat trap was empty of both bait and prey, as had become normal. The mouse trap was empty of … neither.

Mine is an evil laugh.

It’s a nice warm day for mid-January, mid-forties, never did fall below freezing overnight. Which means it’s overcast as hell and dripping cold rain. No way the mud has gotten anything but worse, and after yesterday’s road adventures I figured I’d make sure and get all the necessary chores taken care of and then spend today hiding indoors, which is exactly what I’m doing. Have you read Larry Correia’s Grimnoir Chronicles? If you like old-fashioned hardboiled pulp fiction married to alternate history scifi, you’d love it. Plus it’s an honest trilogy with a beginning, middle and end, which makes it one-of-a-kind for Baen. I’m re-reading it this drippy morning and liking it as much as the first time. Pure, high quality escapism.