trapped

...in days of tense work schedules, I remain, much of the time, behind closed doors. No breakthrough or break time moments today. No time, no time...

That’s okay. Little tidbits remind me that life toddles forward in interesting ways, regardless of pressures and work priorities. For example: I come home late, but with the idea that we still have time for a Paul’s coffee. I pull up to the farmhouse. Ed comes out of the sheep shed,  greeting me with a mousetrap in hand.
I got one. We can let it out in the fields on the way to Paul’s.
He waves the little plastic box with a mouse in it in my face.
He was tricky. Ate the peanut butter the first time, the second time. This time I got him with pepper jack cheese.

And where was Isis in all this?

Don’t know. Not really paying attention to the mouse.

The cat has grown useless. Sort of like me, I imagine, once I reach the age of retirement. Or maybe before.

Ed releases the mouse into the field...





....the little guy runs like crazy across the snow crusted landscape. We wave good bye.

Will you now place the trap in the farmhouse? I ask. There haven’t been signs of mice since we came back, but I like the security of the trap, just in case one gray fellow passes through...
Soon, soon.

I think of Isis, the farmette cat. He hasn’t come to the farmhouse since it turned cold.  His paws don’t appear to like anything below 42 degrees. So he stays at the shed and watches mice dart this way and that. Fine cat. He’s lost his belligerence.

There's so much snappish anger out there. It's good that Isis has moved beyond that.