Life and Death on the Would-Be Farm

The summer of 2018 was a big one for mice at the Would-Be Farm.

Since we left in April, they set up a series of wee discotheques and squalid flophouses throughout Base Camp.  

Let the record show: They did a little dance, made a little love. They got down that night.  

But in shadows? As with every happening hotspot in the known world, predators are just waiting for the opportunity to prey.

It might be a small life-and-death drama, but at the Farm, we are talking actual life and death. 

The scene: a moonlit night deep in the cupboard...The cupboard in the back of the rickety little camper.

The night is sultry. Crickets are singing. Wait. No, actually, cue Tom Waits. 

Things have been getting romantic in the little love nest.

​Maybe things have progressed to post-coital pillow-talk –– be it as it may, I think we need not peep too closely. 

Along comes the big bad. Slithering. Licking the air with a forked tongue for the scent of mousey love. Perhaps the big bad has developed a taste for these tender morsels in their nuptial bower. Or wants to.

In a moment comes a squeaking in the humid dark. A thump perhaps, and a scrabble...A fierce little battle that no diminutive St. George can hope to win.

A final squeak and silence fills Base Camp.

The big bad curls around a full tummy and snoozes for a day or a week, and wakes to the delightfully  stretchy feeling of impending shed. The nuptial bower now a spa room. Exfoliation and microderm abrasion. Buffed. Polished.

​And then vamoosed.

Leaving the mess for the maid.