{"id":21603,"date":"2024-10-30T00:29:12","date_gmt":"2024-10-30T06:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=21603"},"modified":"2024-10-30T15:33:13","modified_gmt":"2024-10-30T21:33:13","slug":"man-against-mouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2024\/10\/30\/man-against-mouse\/","title":{"rendered":"Man Against Mouse"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Bryce Angell – The outdoors has always been a large part of my life. My father was an outfitter and guide for 35 years and I was there to shoe and care for the horses and help him do the cooking. We took many great trips into the Yellowstone area. Even now that I\u2019m older, we still ride into the Tetons, Yellowstone and surrounding areas. My poems are mostly of personal experience. I am now retired and enjoying life to the fullest. I plan to do more riding and writing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I pulled my truck inside the shed and kicked it out of gear. Then gazing through the windshield, yelled, \u201cWhat the heck do we have here?\u201d<\/p>\n

The fattest mouse sat on my wiper, plain as he could be. His beady eyes looked straight ahead. I think he winked at me.<\/p>\n

I flipped the wipers on. I knew I\u2019d make the mouse afraid. But instead of being scared, he did a flip right off the blade.<\/p>\n

I gasped and hollered, \u201cOut of here, you hairy little rat!\u201d I looked around and grumbled, \u201cWhere the heck is that darn cat?\u201d<\/p>\n

Then I realized we\u2019ve never had a rodent-chasing cat. Or even a lazy feline who enjoys just getting fat.<\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s time to sharpen up my skills to catch the little rat. But if I can\u2019t catch the rodent, you can watch me eat my hat.<\/p>\n

My Agriculture teacher told me, \u201cMice are plenty smart. But a mousetrap with some cheddar is where you wanna start.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rodent scurried off, beneath the hood or who knows where. I pulled the latch and raised the lid. That mouse was gone, I swear.<\/p>\n

I thought my problem solved itself, then looked up on the dash. I counted twenty-five mouse turds. I swept them in the trash.<\/p>\n

From a mouse\u2019s point of view, my Chevy truck is full of treats. I had to stop the critter \u2018fore he chewed holes in my seats.<\/p>\n

I baited both the mousetraps with the sharpest cheddar cheese. I placed \u2018em on the truck floor so the mouse could sniff a tease.<\/p>\n

The smell of cheddar cheese gave me a voracious appetite. For dinner we ate cheeseburgers, then turned in for the night.<\/p>\n

At the morning time inspection there were mouse turds on the mats. The cheese had been untouched. Was he worried \u2018bout saturated fats?<\/p>\n

I took away the cheddar cheese and baited it with bread. I hoped it wouldn\u2019t be too long before the mouse was dead.<\/p>\n

I almost left the woodshed when I heard the fateful snap. Inside the pickup door there lay a fat mouse in my trap.<\/p>\n

Well, it seems a piece of cheddar isn\u2019t what a mouse likes best. Or maybe he was finicky. For sure, he\u2019s one dead pest.<\/p>\n

Did I teach the mouse a lesson? In this life there\u2019s no free lunch. But I guess he learned a little late. Let\u2019s say, \u201cHe felt the crunch.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I pulled my truck inside the shed and kicked it out of gear. Then gazing through the windshield, yelled, \u201cWhat the heck do we have here?\u201d The fattest mouse sat on my wiper, plain as he could be. His beady eyes looked straight ahead. I think he winked at me. I flipped the wipers on. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160,2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21603","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-cowboy-poetry","7":"category-commentary"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21603"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21604,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21603\/revisions\/21604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}