Well, I'm stumped again: how can a cracker with peanut butter, wedged into a plastic mouse trap be missing without a sign of the offending mouse? The door swings shut once you're in nibbling at the cracker!
I fret about this for a long time. (Though not over breakfast. There are better things than mice to talk about during this important meal.)
Ah! I have an insight! I tell Ed -- I placed the cracker too close to the entrance! Big fat mouse, well nourished by our tidbits, didn't have to go all the way inside to get it! For tonight, I'll push the cracker into the back and dabble some more peanut butter to entice it at the edge!
Ed looks at me with a broad grin. Wow. You're smarter than a mouse.
Well now, that's a good thing. A mouse's head is even smaller than that of a chicken. And honestly, oftentimes I cannot figure out what runs through a cheeper brain.
By early afternoon it becomes clear that Indian Summer had been but a one day affair. Today, as a commenter foresaw, surely could be described as windy. The trees are increasingly bare and there's a benefit to that: so much more sky is visible at the farmette now!
Ed and I had set aside time for a walk and we do just that: the Nature Conservancy trail is about a mile up the road from us and at this time of the year, you can hike back and look down toward the wetlands that drain toward Lake Waubesa.
If the wind blew a hefty load of clouds our way when we set out...
...toward the end of our not especially long hike, it had blown them out of our range again.
The beauty of Fall isn't only in the color of the maple and birch leaves. It's the composite of all that is radiant and golden now.
Night time. Ed comes in after putting the cheepers away. He's twirling some metal gizmo that has been the focus of his designing attention lately. I look at it, take it apart, put it back together.
You have to hit it more.
What? How?
Just clamp that part down. I do that.
Am I like one of the guys now? I ask.
Well, they wouldn't have had to be told to clamp it down. Unless they were really dumb about their ER 8 spindles.
I come back to Ocean with a smile, finish my post and click "publish."
I fret about this for a long time. (Though not over breakfast. There are better things than mice to talk about during this important meal.)
Ah! I have an insight! I tell Ed -- I placed the cracker too close to the entrance! Big fat mouse, well nourished by our tidbits, didn't have to go all the way inside to get it! For tonight, I'll push the cracker into the back and dabble some more peanut butter to entice it at the edge!
Ed looks at me with a broad grin. Wow. You're smarter than a mouse.
Well now, that's a good thing. A mouse's head is even smaller than that of a chicken. And honestly, oftentimes I cannot figure out what runs through a cheeper brain.
By early afternoon it becomes clear that Indian Summer had been but a one day affair. Today, as a commenter foresaw, surely could be described as windy. The trees are increasingly bare and there's a benefit to that: so much more sky is visible at the farmette now!
Ed and I had set aside time for a walk and we do just that: the Nature Conservancy trail is about a mile up the road from us and at this time of the year, you can hike back and look down toward the wetlands that drain toward Lake Waubesa.
If the wind blew a hefty load of clouds our way when we set out...
...toward the end of our not especially long hike, it had blown them out of our range again.
The beauty of Fall isn't only in the color of the maple and birch leaves. It's the composite of all that is radiant and golden now.
Night time. Ed comes in after putting the cheepers away. He's twirling some metal gizmo that has been the focus of his designing attention lately. I look at it, take it apart, put it back together.
You have to hit it more.
What? How?
Just clamp that part down. I do that.
Am I like one of the guys now? I ask.
Well, they wouldn't have had to be told to clamp it down. Unless they were really dumb about their ER 8 spindles.
I come back to Ocean with a smile, finish my post and click "publish."
A mystery mouse. I think you'll have better luck with your new peanut butter/cracker strategy.
ReplyDeleteAnother nice chicken photo. I think your chickens have to be the most photographed in all of WI.
Its been windy here as well and today leaves fell like rain.
As usual nice photos. There was one in your last post that looked like a painting.
ER 8 spindle....ummmm, not a clue!
If the cheepers would quit moving so much, I'd photograph them even more! It would take the burden off of Ed! :)
DeleteOh yes, you are a glass-half-full person! (The trees are increasingly bare, but that just means more sky is visible.) Hooray for your positive outlook! That's why I started following you every day. Now I come back because I like you, cookie! :)
ReplyDeleteThe photos from your walk today remind me how much I have always enjoyed sky-watching, from the youngest age, with my mother. The one with the dramatic rays of the sun...in my childhood I used to think that was "God looking down".
But that's a lovely thought, isn't it? Golden light, warm, benevolent.
I pick up the sky theme today. I'll always remember first arriving in Madison in '79 and thinking -- I never knew that a sky could be this big!
DeleteAww Nina, you don't really want to be one of his guys, now, do you? Variety is the spice... remember? Women were only invented and produced after the Maker had fiddled around with men and decided there needed to be lots of tweaks... so we are tweaked and just right... (smiling)
ReplyDeleteI have very little *guy* in me, much to Ed's amusement. He feels compelled sometimes to explain that world to me. It never fails to make me laugh.
DeleteI must confess that I ADORE any and all photos of the cheepers. They are full of so much personality. Almost cartoonish. I always smile,
ReplyDelete