I don’t know how mice are getting in and out of Ian’s powershed but they’re suddenly doing it in substantial numbers. And the only way I know to keep that from turning the place completely useless is jihad.
Here’s #5:
I got two kills – or at least two snaps – overnight and one dragged the trap away and I haven’t found it yet. So #6 is going to be a problem to say nothing of the loss of a nearly-new mousetrap. But…
…I know how to keep that from happening again.
They say that Louis XIV had the inscription Ultima Ratio Regum cast into all the cannon of the French Army. It means “The Ultimate Argument of Kings,” and that always struck me as one of the most honest and up-front things any ruler or would-be ruler ever said. “We can dress it up prettier than this, but when it comes down to the unvarnished truth this is what it’s about: You’ll do as I say or I’ll send my goons to kill you.”
I thought about that for a long time. If there’s an ultimate argument, it seems only logical that there must be an ultimate answer. For years I thought the ultimate answer must be the bullets in my rifle, but it never seemed quite right. I’ve got bullets – he’s got frigging Cannon Balls. I mean, if there were three hundred million rifles throwing bullets at him, then maybe. But we all know that’s not going to happen. So if there’s an ultimate answer to his ultimate argument, it sure as hell ain’t bullets.
It finally came to me – and that’s when I abandoned the city and most of my stuff, and gave all that was behind me a good stiff Randian Shrug.
The ultimate answer to kings is not a bullet, but a belly laugh.
Little Bear 2009-2018
Laddie the Amazing Torso Boy 2011-2020
"Freedom Outlaw. It’s not what you do; it’s how you do it. It’s an attitude — from which actions always follow. It’s a do-it-yourself occupation. And a lifetime vocation."
- Claire Wolfe, Backwoods Home Companion, 6-07-10
I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.
- G. K. Chesterton
"If every Jewish and anti-Nazi family in Germany had owned a Mauser rifle and twenty rounds of ammunition and the will to use it, Adolf Hitler would be a little-known footnote to the history of the Weimar Republic."
- Aaron Zelman
"Authority should derive from the consent of the governed, not from the threat of force."
- Barbie
"Never underestimate the ability of shit to find a fan."
- F. Paul Wilson
"You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs." The sophistry of villains - Bah!
- Robert A. Heinlein, Double Star
“Truth is, I’m not specifically interested in an armed society. What I want is a free society.”
- George Potter
I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.
- D. H. Lawrence
Aristippus passed Diogenes as he was washing lentils.
He said, “If you could but learn to flatter the king, you would not have to live on lentils.”
Diogenes said, “And if you could learn to live on lentils, you would not have to flatter the king.”
Sandy Hook was a Gun Free Zone. So was the Westroads Mall. And the Aurora Theater. And Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Should I go on? They were all Gun Free Zones.
– Reality
“Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.”
- Robert A. Heinlein
"Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."
- Ayn Rand
If ever a man should ask you
For your business or your name
Tell him to go and fuck himself
Tell his friends to do the same.
For a man who'd trade his liberty
For a safe and dreamless sleep
Doesn't deserve the both of them
And neither shall he keep.
- Frank Turner
Don't be afraid to try something big, just because you're an amateur. The Ark was built by amateurs. The Titanic was built by professionals.
- Anon
"Nothing scares a police officer more than the threat of being treated the way that they treat people every day."
- Anon
"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet."
- Gen. James Mattis
"Lust for power is the most flagrant of all the passions."
- Tacitus
"The man who knows what freedom means will find a way to be free."
- F.A. "Baldy" Harper
"The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude."
- William James
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
- Viktor Frankl
The free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country.
- Milton Friedman
“We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.”
- William Faulkner
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.
- Ernest Hemingway
"Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
John Moses Browning - The most badass Mormon who ever lived.
"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.'"
- Ronald Reagan
The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.
- James A. Baldwin
"It is better to be a warrior in a garden than to be a gardener in a war."
- Anon
“I tried to live in such a way that, when dying, I would rather feel happy than scared.”
– Witold Pilecki
Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.
- Sallust
"Place your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark."
- Lazarus Long
Read, every day, something no one else is reading.
Think, every day, something no one else is thinking.
Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do.
It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.
– Christopher Morley
“I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceases to be a man.”
-Frederick Douglass
ESSE QUAM VIDERI –
To be, rather than to seem
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
“A Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give.”
– Ida B. Wells
Do what thy manhood bid thee do; from none but self expect applause.
He noblest lives and noblest dies, who makes and keeps his self made laws
– Sir Richard Burton
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
– Winston Churchill
“Happiness is a journey, not a destination. Dance as though no one is watching you. Love as though you have never been hurt before. Sing as though no one can hear you. Live as though heaven is on earth.”
― Father Alfred d’Souza
Bucket with a few inches of antifreeze, wire coat-hanger through a can secured across the top.
Place a ramp up to the edge of the bucket, the can over the center of the bucket, and peanut butter on top of the can. Works better for me if the ramp is perpendicular to the can-wire.
Empty dead mice when you can, add a bit of green-juice as necessary as it cuts the decomposition and smell down if they float for a while.
It’s like a Ronco Oven, except for megadeath carcass removal.
I must admit that I’ve never heard of the word “jihad” being used to describe killing mice. That brought visions of you, Joel running around dressed like a Bedouin waving a scimitar over your head, screaming things in Arabic, slashing at the little furry bastards.
I know this wasn’t your intention, but it did bring a smile to my sour old face. Thank you for that, and I hope you get the little furry rodents.
I like MN Steel approach to mice irradiation. I did get a chuckle on jihad against the rodents.
If you got two in one night, these likely weren’t canny indoor rodents, but rather country bumpkin rodents that are being attracted inside for some reason, but lack indoor survival skills.
Maybe a tiny crack under the door. Since you can sew (what I’ve done) is to take foam pipe insulation the width of the door x 2 ( one for inside and one for outside) make a sleeve out of durable material that fits both tubes + width of door. Place both tubes inside sleeve and the. With door open slide the barrier u def the door and into place. It blocks any space and easily slides open and closed.
Joel, I’ve never commented here before, but I’ve been reading your blog for years. I am not even sure how I found you. Anyway, all this talk of mice reminds me of Zelda, when she used to get on your case about killing every mouse in sight. I haven’t seen her comment on here for a while, do you know what has happened to her?
Jules, I really don’t. Like you, talk of rodents naturally turned my mind to Zelda. It’s been a long time since I remember reading a comment from her.
That’s too bad about Zelda, obviously something happened to her. If only we could know what happens to commenters.
No, not obvious. I’d guess most times somebody just gets tired of reading the same boring stuff on a blog.
Excellent suggestions! May I humbly contribute:
1. Capture a few mice and train them to be LGBTQXYZetc. Send them forth to corrupt the sexual morals of the rodent population. They’ll buttseks themselves out of existence within a generation or two.
2. Continuing the jihad scheme, capture some more mice and brainwash them into fanatic islamice. This will work well with suggestion #1 as the mujamice thin the herd with religious fervour. You could supply them with little bomb vests crafted on your reloading bench, and snicker when you hear a mouse bathhouse orgy get blowed up in the late night desert stillness. Erect a few self serve miniature gallows in strategic positions and admire the dangling trannymouse corpses during morning walkies with Tobie. Be on guard when the female islamice steal your holey socks to make mouse burkas; that will mean they are breeding vigorously to supplant the degenerate sodomice from phase #1. Be not deterred, read on!
3. Seek an especially crafty and malicious rat and supply him with a lethal pathogen and a propaganda team. Pay your Faucirat a commission of 1 gram of cheese for every mouse he convinces to accept the pathogen as a vaccine against some imaginary foul disease, perhaps blamed on the filthy perversions of the sodomice, or a heinous plot by the islamice to kill the infidels. Once the mice begin dying off, insist that the epidemic is due to unvaccinated mice and increase the pressure to vaccinate. At some point you can denounce him to the islamice and have them assassinate him, or if there are none left pay a freelance hitfox a few mice bodies to whack him.
4. Be on guard against self organising militiamice. Infiltrate specially trained fibbimice to instigate sinister plots, then betray them to the department of agriculture. Use the Faucirat’s propaganda arm to accuse the militiarats of opposing the sodomice pro choice movement. The outraged squeaking will be epic, and the sodomice will feverishly begin aborting litters to exercise their constitutional right. The Faucirat can establish a lucrative sideline in providing free mouse abortion centres and use the harvested parts in his vaccine lab.
5. Introduce white labrats, undocumented meximice, and african mice liberated from slavery in local petstores. Foment racial disharmony, support whatever BmLM, Mice13 and labrat supremacist hate and criminal groups that emerge. Stand back and guffaw as they burn down their own mouseholes and slay each other in a chaotic frenzy.
6. Acquire a cat.
There, that should keep you busily entertained and hopefully soon free of vermin. Personally, I suspect #6 is the most sensible solution, but don’t let me hold you back. Please provide photographs of your endeavours. Happy hunting!
I’m not sure about your “reading boring stuff” comment, because if Zelda were okay I’m sure she would be cheering on your rodent jihad. She hated those suckers! Also, like I said I’ve been reading your blog for years and — it reminds me when I lived in New Mexico for bit. So keep writing even though you think it’s boring.