Very Superstitious
On Friday, I turned 35. When I was a kid my mom would throw surprise birthday parties. Every year. The day of the party I would be required to go somewhere. Inevitably, someone would need something from the store, even if we already had the item or never had the item. “Come on Ralph, we gotta get some chocolate licorice and a tube of epoxy!” When I’d get back, the house would be crammed with every family member within eighty miles. The same was done for my brother and sisters. For the first couple years, it was a surprise, after that … maybe a bit less of a surprise. However, one year it worked.…
Falling in Love in the Setting Sun
There is a group of mule deer here whose numbers are between 17-20. They’ll often wander through our back pasture in small clumps. Yesterday six or seven of them decided to rest by a shed that will eventually become our goat barn. I’ve taken dozens of photographs through the windows, trying not to disturb them, but yesterday I decided I’d had enough of the distorted images and I opened the back door. Slowly and quietly over a period of ten minutes, I worked my way outside without startling them. Sitting on the step with a warm breeze blowing in the early evening sun, while the mangy deer lounged nearby, was…
It’s Just the Way It Goes
We are being overrun by mice. Poop is everywhere! They began their assault by entering through plumbing holes beneath the kitchen sink. We plugged the holes with steel wool, which they then pushed out of the way to continue peeing all over the dish rack. So we hot glued the steel wool in place and stopped their invasion. Then the assault came from behind the stove. We moved the stove and the refrigerator and glued steel wool into any opening big enough for a ball bearing to fit through. Following that, the mice started pouring from the furnace closet. We can’t remove the furnace to reseal the room so we…
Catch as Catch Can
One of the cows from the neighboring ranch got into our pasture this afternoon. Unfortunately, our fencing isn’t very solid. We had intended to repair it in the spring so we could put a couple horses of our own out there, but it’s not spring yet, so it’s still unsuitable for animals. I didn’t want to risk her getting out of our pasture as well, so I had to run out in the wind, alone, to mend the one large opening that would allow her complete freedom. Most of the fencing is, unfortunately, barbed wire, but the opening is a gate of sorts, made with livestock fence that had blown…
What Will Be, Will Be
We didn’t get as much done over the weekend as we had hoped. We have some of the lights up but there are multiple strands still laying in the yard. We have to go through a few and find whichever bulbs are causing the outages. I guess the title from my last post was foretelling. Christmas lights frustrate me, as does pie crust, wrapping oddly shaped presents, and doors that do not clearly mark if they swing from the left or from the right. On the mouse front… We plugged every hole we could find that may be allowing the mice access to the kitchen. Now they’re coming from the…
