05/09: You got "a" mouse in your van...?
When we got to The Bluff we were quickly warned by a few different neighbors that there was a mouse epidemic broken out among the camp and that we should make sure that anything we have that is edible be sealed up in hard, unchewable plastic. This was simply not possible. John and i had purchased an absurd amount of food, based on the fact that 'we were on vacation', 'money is no object', and 'can you really have enough Doritos, Tim Tams, and Cookies???' We were loaded with goodies and had not planned on bringing out mouse proof containers of any kind.
We were looted nightly, counting in the morning the casualties of mouse war...a bag of Doritos, a bag of muesli, a bag of Arnott's Scotch Fingers (chocolate dipped). They had no mercy and I couldn't blame them, if I were a mouse I would have done exactly the same, just a shame the poor little guys couldn't have boiled a pot of tea, cause the Scotch Fingers go down so much better dipped in a hot cuppa'.
We had nightly visits, I know, I was sleeping in the van. They gave me only one respite, they didn't run over my face, my legs yes, but not my face. We borrowed a mouse trap from my friend Dave who lives in an RV caravan out there, and after a week or so i was finding that i could sleep through the night without waking, with the exception of when the mouse trap was set off. In which case I would roll over, hold the trap out the window of the van, release the dead little vermin, and then reset the trap. One night, at the top of my game, we got 3 of the little suckers.
The second week a new American kid, Billie, rolled in to The Bluff. We were at Dave's one evening having one of Dave's famous communal dinners, i think it was pizza night, and Billie mentioned to me and Dave that he had a mouse living in his van. To which Dave replied numerous times, "Oh, so, you have "A" mouse living in your van huh? "A" mouse! "A" mouse living in your van...and I was laughing almost histerically at the look on Billie and Dave's faces as Dave exaggerated and drew out the "A" and Billie looked at us both like we were crazy, cause yes he had "a mouse" living in his van. I don't think Billie truly got what we were getting at until i broke in and told him that i had been catching about 2-3 a night in my van.
When after 2 and a half weeks we packed up our stuff and took up John's tent from next to the van we found a maze of mouse tunnels that had been dug up underneath John's tent. He had unconsciously been keeping a whole family of mice warm and dry while i kept them fed with our rations in the van.
We were looted nightly, counting in the morning the casualties of mouse war...a bag of Doritos, a bag of muesli, a bag of Arnott's Scotch Fingers (chocolate dipped). They had no mercy and I couldn't blame them, if I were a mouse I would have done exactly the same, just a shame the poor little guys couldn't have boiled a pot of tea, cause the Scotch Fingers go down so much better dipped in a hot cuppa'.
We had nightly visits, I know, I was sleeping in the van. They gave me only one respite, they didn't run over my face, my legs yes, but not my face. We borrowed a mouse trap from my friend Dave who lives in an RV caravan out there, and after a week or so i was finding that i could sleep through the night without waking, with the exception of when the mouse trap was set off. In which case I would roll over, hold the trap out the window of the van, release the dead little vermin, and then reset the trap. One night, at the top of my game, we got 3 of the little suckers.
The second week a new American kid, Billie, rolled in to The Bluff. We were at Dave's one evening having one of Dave's famous communal dinners, i think it was pizza night, and Billie mentioned to me and Dave that he had a mouse living in his van. To which Dave replied numerous times, "Oh, so, you have "A" mouse living in your van huh? "A" mouse! "A" mouse living in your van...and I was laughing almost histerically at the look on Billie and Dave's faces as Dave exaggerated and drew out the "A" and Billie looked at us both like we were crazy, cause yes he had "a mouse" living in his van. I don't think Billie truly got what we were getting at until i broke in and told him that i had been catching about 2-3 a night in my van.
When after 2 and a half weeks we packed up our stuff and took up John's tent from next to the van we found a maze of mouse tunnels that had been dug up underneath John's tent. He had unconsciously been keeping a whole family of mice warm and dry while i kept them fed with our rations in the van.
