Sunday (02-December-2012) — New Jersey

Late Autumn Indoor Nature in New Jersey: Dead Mouse in the Basement.

A month ago, just after hurricane Sandy I checked to make sure that there wasn’t any water in the basement. I did see that the mouse/rat poison trays were empty. I also saw a large number of Crickets and House Centipedes. I also thought that I saw something moving fast out of the corner of my eye, but couldn’t be sure if it was a mouse. I placed several new poison trays in the basement just to be sure. 30-October-2012 This was the first time that I had been in the basement since going on the Fall 2012 Semester at Sea Voyage and my October road trip to attend the Nikonians ANPAT 12 trip in New Mexico.

As I mentioned yesterday, I have been setting up and re-configuring my home office. The label printer I have requires a com port connection to a computer, however neither of my current computers have com ports. I ordered a USB com port converter on Amazon that arrived in 2 days. When I tried to set up the label printer with the new USB com port, the printer didn’t work. Actually, no lights to indicate that it was even getting power. Rather than just throwing the label printer out (note – in New Jersey, I can’t just dump it in the trash – but need to bring it to a recycling center that is only open once a week) I opened it up and found that a fuse was blown. So, where can I find a fuse?

Back to the original story, I went down to the basement to see if I had the right fuse in my electronics parts collection. Sitting on my bench, I found this dead mouse. I guess that the new batch of poison is working. When I took this picture, I also saw that there is a war going on between the crickets and the house centipedes. I think I am going to set up a camera & flash to see if I can get a time-lapsed view of this indoor wildlife conflict.

Well, since I didn’t find the fuse I needed, I ordered one (actually pack of 5) on Amazon. It should get here in two days. We will see if my old “fix it” electronic days still work. Problems with the 20-year-old Yamaha AX-550 Stereo Amplifier for another day.

Dead Mouse in the Basement. Image taken with a Nikon D3 and 105 mm f/2.8 VR macro lens with a SB-900 flash (ISO 200, 105 mm, f/11, 1/60 sec). (David J. Mathre)
Dead Mouse in the Basement. Image taken with a Nikon D3 and 105 mm f/2.8 VR macro lens with a SB-900 flash (ISO 200, 105 mm, f/11, 1/60 sec). (David J. Mathre)