When in the desert agriculture is difficult at best and at worst is next to impossible. Any food source rather it was animal or plant based needed water and deserts only had water near oasis' and siq's. To make matters worse the blazing sun burnt the leaves and cooked the root vegetables in the ground. The son baked ground was another problem as if some one tried to dig a hole for individual plants you would be basically digging clay pots in the ground and if some one tried to till the earth the plow disks would break.

In short food was a precious commodity in the desert and a family of mice were steeling food from the village. This would not do especially since that family of mice was probably eating his share of food. Well if the mice were steeling food from the food stores than that was where he was going to look for and hopefully catch them.

Shimo sat in the shade of one of the food storage silo's and went over a few things about the jerboa mouse. Every one in the desert has seen a jerboa have been taught how to act like one. Jerboa have big ears to radiate heat and fur to insulate them selves. The big ears also helped them to hear predators trying to sneak up on them. They also had big feet to keep from sinking into the sand this also gave them some serious agility when trying to get away. Being desert creatures they knew well enough to come out in the evening and at night to avoid the heat making them hard to see. Top all this off with the mouse being smart enough to survive in the wilderness and the fact is clear. All in all they were a serious pain to try and catch one at a time.

With any animal there was a hard way and an easy way to catch these critters. The hard way was to chase the mice around scrambling all over the place trying to tire them out can catch them normally even for a ninja this can be extremely exhausting. The easy way was to have them come to you or to a place they can't escape.

Well Shimo would just have to build a better mouse trap. Off to the dump to gather some free supplies to catch these big eared little critters.

To build a better mouse trap Shimo would need a few things and the dump well no one cared about stuff they threw away. The first thing Shimo would need is a housing for the trap, an old piece of pipe or an old chimney would be perfect. Avoiding the smellier piles of garbage Shimo found a nice pile of industrial scraps that weren't recycled. Pay dirt an old blacksmith chimney with the flew still intact. It was roughly 3 inches in radius and two feet long. Not a bad start.

The flew he would have to loosen up a lot so that the mice could push it in and get to the bait inside but finding the chimney and the flew was a bonus that made the task of building this trap a lot easier. He still needed to close the other end of the chimney. Digging deeper into the industrial scrap pile he looked for something to go over the chimney that can be taken off easily to dump the contents.

Finally a nice tin coffee can came into view perfect all he needed now was an old piece of rope or cloth in which to connect and seal the two together. Off to that pile of ratty clothing he passed. The pile smelled horrid but at least they weren't flea ridden. He found the silk sleeve of what used to be a long sleeve under shirt for an expensive suit.

Now all he needed to do was put every thing together and find the trail the jerboa were using to go from the food stores to their nest.

The trail the pack of jebroa made was an easy one to follow it was a nice little trail of droppings and grain leading from the food store to their nest. Messy creatures despite their cuteness. After finding the nest Shimo set to work Taking the chimney and flew he reached in and began to work the hinge loose until all it would take to open it was a small bit of force and fall just by gravity pulling on it. ~Squeak, clunk~ . Taking the coffee can he placed the open end over the end of the chimney to where the flew would open to the inside. After that he stuffed the sleeve around and inside the gap between the coffee can and the chimney.

After the trap was built he placed it in about the middle of the trail. After he placed the trap near the trail he tucked some sweet dates into the back of the trap found a nice shady spot to wait and watch.

Grain is tasty but dates are sweeter and they were closer. And as time went by
~squeak, clunk~
~squeak, clunk~
~squeak, clunk~
~squeak, clunk~
~squeak, clunk~
~squeak, clunk~
~squeak, clunk~
~squeak, clunk~
~squeak, clunk~
~squeak, clunk~