It’s like some weird tradition at this point.
The bucket trap on my porch* never catches just one mouse. I get why they’re attracted to it: If you have a bucket of water sitting around overnight in the desert further bait is really not required. But if I climbed a ramp to a tank of water, even if dying of thirst, and saw a drowned body inside, I think I could probably resist the temptation to dive in with it.
So what is it? Are they holding hands and jumping together, a mousey sort of suicide pact? Is one trying to rescue the other? Are they really just that amazingly oblivious?
One good thing…
It’s the desert. I’ll never run out of places to dispose of bodies so it isn’t necessary to fish them out, wrap them in plastic and stink up the trash barrel with them. Some enterprising coyote or badger or whatever will dine well tonight.
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*And why oh why are so many mice attracted so unerringly to my porch at night? It really doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. Not that I’m demanding logic from mice, but come on.
There are just a ginormous number of field mice. If each one had a headlight, you could probably read outside at night. I know whenever I go camping in the truck, it doesn’t matter where it is there will be a half-dozen working hard all night to jump up to get inside.
I initially thought the post title referred to Kenny at Knuckledraggin My Life Away and thought “Oh, this should be sumthin’ else!”. It was. 🙂
Just water in the bucket? No cheap tequila to knock ’em out?
A related (sort of) anecdote if I may:
Years ago – 1995? – the wife unit and I spent a January week in a log cabin in the Sierras of California.
The snow was feet deep – which was a treat for us Aussies – and the prints in the snow each morning showed that one or more large bears had been all over the little porch outside our cabin during the night.
We were a little concerned, but since we never went out at night, and never saw a bear in daylight, we just shrugged and carried on.
When we left the park, we posed the question to the ranger at the entrance, “How come so many bears leaving prints at our cabin?”
He immediately accompanied us back to the cabin, and pointed out the food and bottles of milk that the cabin’s previous occupants had shoved into the snow outside the door (no power for refrigeration) despite the written warnings against the practice.
He swore that those responsible would NEVER be allowed to book a cabin again.