The Battle is over!

Pic above is from the inside of the wall. No body as of yet!!

Although the battle with the pirate mouse is over, we still have to locate the body. The little pirate had the audacity to die in a private place, alone. We can smell the little bas****, but we have yet to locate the body. How inconsiderate of him to die in a secluded location! We surmised that he died of his wounds. He was successful at getting out of four traps with peanut butter on them, but must have sustained injuries in the battle. We kept fresh water available for him so he wouldn't try eating his way through a waterline or a bottle of water. The only other possibility is that when Lynda cleaned down below the bunks in the front bedroom she used Mr. Clean, which may be lethal when ingested.

Nevertheless the body needs to be recovered for burial. We suspect that he died in the walls between the outer and inner hulls.

A distinct smell is wafting out in that direction. The nausea that just writing about it causes is enough for me to quit writing about it. My smelling capacity was greatly diminished forty some years ago when a shotgun blast removed my nose and my face, but this critters decomposing body is susceptible even to me! We have to locate the body no matter what, or wait until it dries up; yuck!!

After looking everywhere imaginable, and sweeping up a shitload, literally, of mouse droppings, we have not found him. So, today we got out a light and a video Flip camera. We shined the light down the wall through various cutouts, and used the Flip camera video to make a number of videos of the inside of the wall in hopes of locating the rat. Lynda also used ingenuity by locating a small mirror to use as a sight tool in hopes of locating him. The mirror gave no immediate results, but hopefully when I finish compiling the videos on my computer I can go through frame by frame looking for any hints of his war torn body. If the videos avail nothing we will probably have to attach a small flashlight to the camera, and investigate further in the vestiges of the boat. A body must be found!

I had a pirate mouse on my sailboat last year, above, but after battling him for a month, he gave up and jumped ship. He was an especially clever little devil. His battle plan was to set off the traps, and then hide them from me. It took several months after the war to find all of the missing traps. I thought that the experience I garnered from those battles might be helpful in this most recent encounter. On one hand I may have delivered the deadly blow through my battle experience, but on the other hand I did not think I would have problems finding and burying the dead.

I’ll do a post op-ed when and if we find him. If we don’t we may need to keep the fans going, and the windows open for a number of days until the body is all dried up like a piece of jerky. 

Now that gives me a visual that will certainly keep me from ever eating another piece of jerky!!

What to do; what to do?