EEK! and Other Ramblings

Gosh, darn it! More mice are running around the house again. I am lucky that Ward usually sets the mouse traps around here, but he's been away for a few days helping his father, who had major surgery last week. I guess I'm gonna have to put on my big girl pants and put some traps out myself. As far as the mice are concerned, the only thing I've done about them so far is to wear shoes in the house. A friend was talking about a mouse that ran across their feet last week while they were standing in the kitchen. Now I know they are just little, mostly harmless creatures, but I'd rather not have a close encounter like that.

Last night, after seeing at least two scurrying around, I pretended that I was camping so I could go to sleep. It's funny how, if the mice are outside, I don't have any problems with them. It's when they come inside that I get a little lot skittish.

Ward examining the damage.

In other news, Debby came to town last week and took down an apple tree in the backyard. It was an older tree, so we were not entirely surprised, but very sad all the same. The good news is that it was far enough away from any buildings and our new fence that its fall did no damage. The apples on it aren't ripe, so we will process it when it looks dead, hoping the apples will ripen more. 

Debby's rain brought some other surprises. Mushrooms are popping up everywhere, and we had one in the front yard that was 10 inches tall. A simple but fun thing that had everyone in the neighborhood talking when they saw it on their evening walks. It had enough interest that we mowed around it when we cut the grass. A few days later, it collapsed under its own weight.

I'm tired, so I think I better stop before my ramblings don't make any sense.

Until next time...

So Long.

Last week we had a storm come through that took down a large tree in our front yard.  The tree was a Bradford Pear and is know to have splitting problems because of the way the branches grow out of the trunk. But this one had beaten the odds. It was over 50' tall and the trunk had a circumference of 27". The good news is that it didn't hit anything and we were able to get it cleaned up before it killed the grass.

But I miss it. It was the one we saw out our kitchen window that provided a beautiful display of white blossoms in the spring and red and yellow leaves in the fall. It was the one we watched squirrels scamper up and down, and the one we watched birds hop from branch to branch. It was the one that a large flock of cedar wax-wings would land on in the spring to feast on the small fruit, and it was the one that provided interest and structure to our yard. 

 In the grand scheme of things, this was a minor inconvenience. But I miss it.