Knitting Cybrarian

Hey! It's my friend Carrie!

The time of the year

My dad used to characterize something he saw as being part of "the time of year."  He's been on my mind as I've noticed the trees heralding fall's arrival.  I noticed the first leaves a week and a half ago.  There's a tree on a certain corner that always turns red first.  A couple of branches on the northeast corner of the tree seem to greet me at that intersection.  I turn towards the tree as I make that turn and it seems to say "hey!  Winter's coming!  But look at me, I'm beautiful NOW."

Speaking of the time of the year, because the evenings have turned cooler a little earlier than last year, the mice invaded.  I mentioned in an earlier post that Portia got one and I got one in a trap.  Last night I heard a trap go off around 10:20pm or so.  I really didn't want to deal with it and go back to bed, and possibly interrupt Portia on Mouse Patrol.  This morning I found the mouse still alive with its tail caught in the trap.  It looked up at me and then at Joel, terrified and wanting to be free.

Joel wanted me to let it go.  I wasn't so crazy about that, but I really didn't want to actually do the deed.  Rain was pouring like crazy outside, so I donned rubber gloves, opened the door and went to release the mouse.  Rain was pouring so hard that the mouse did not want to leave the trap, crawling on the underside to escape the rain.  I gave the trap a shake and flung the mouse to its freedom.

Let's hope it's grateful enough to stay outside.  Who am I kidding? 

Traps are baited again tonight and Portia is on Mouse Patrol.  I'll be so glad when this is over. 

A great reason

for me to learn how to spin, using a wheel.

Thanks, Zarzuela!

traps and snaps

The hubster bought 4 mouse traps tonight.  I set 3 of them with peanut butter and let's hope I'm successful.  They're all out of Portia's reach, but in places where I've verified a mouse (or mice -- egad) have been. 

Stay posted for more icky tales.

But the weather has been lovely, but I was so tired today I only noticed on the ride home. 

Hope you are not being invaded as the critters get ready for winter!

Hours later...

It's nearly 5pm and I've finally taken a shower.  Today Joel and I scrubbed, bleached, cleaned, bleached, vacuumed, you get the idea.  Of course, after I finished bleaching down the kitchen counters and everything that's stored on them, he reminded me that if the mice show up tonight, all of our work is for naught.

I knew that, but I didn't want to really have to face that possibility.

I also dusted, and have a few glass pieces to wash-- they're items that usually sit on the mantel and have gotten quite dusty.  The pieces aren't that valuable (or I wouldn't be mentioning them), but they mean something to me, and they need to be clean to really look good.

And did I mention we cleaned out the drawers and top of our butcher block cart and scrubbed/bleached the items on the cart?  Sigh.  I'm one of these folks who usually washes pots/pans/food processor, etc. before using anyway, but I can't stand to have any visible dirt on them.  And we won't discuss what kind of dirt was on some of them.  I hate mice.

Portia has been napping most of today while we've cleaned.  I expect her to earn her keep tonight.

What a week

I stayed home this morning.  Just exhausted.  Let me give you a few highlights and lowlights of this week:

• There are mice in the house.  Portia killed one early Wednesday morning, but one skittered from underneath the stove yesterday morning.  Preheating the oven to 400 drove it out from its hiding place.  Portia was licking herself and didn't see the little thing dart out.  However, she's spent the better part of every night on Mouse Patrol. 
• And we've found mouse droppings in several places in the kitchen.  Which means that we've been cleaning everything in the kitchen.  My dear student assistants, please don't worry.  I washed all the kitchen bowls, utensils, and baking pans before and after I made things for you.  Using very hot water, strong, antibacterial detergent, etc.  And we're using bleach to soak any number of things.  Ugh.
• I work at the Local Yarn Store (LYS) most Saturdays.  Yesterday morning I got a tearful phone call from my Saturday co-worker.  One of her closest friends had been killed a few hours before in a botched robbery attempt.  There are not enough words or hugs to give comfort. 
• Even sadder is that this is the second friend to be killed in less than a year, and a third friend (one that we both knew) died in a car wreck a few months ago.
• Another dear friend came to the LYS asking me to finish seaming a knitted jacket and block it so she could wear it to her mother's memorial service.  I'm honored that she asked me.  I'll also try to keep from crying when I do it, as I knew her mother too.

Back to cleaning.  Joel's done much of the vacuuming and pulling things out, and it's time to put order to the current chaos, now that various things have dried. 

Did I mention the snake in the library?

Mouse in the house; snakes in the library

It's been a heck of a week.  I'm so dang tired on a number of levels.  Rather than complaining, though, let me entertain you.

Wednesday morning, 3:30am.  Her Highness woke us with a loud "YOWWWWL.  ROWRRRRL."  I got up to see what was going on.  We had suspected a mouse invasion, and indeed Portia had caught and killed the mouse.  She wanted parental approval.  I praised her, and watched her fling it up in the air and catch it.  She eventually flung it into my bathroom.  I figured if she dispatched it there, it would be much neater than on carpet.  And that's what she did.  She's stayed parked where she can watch underneath the stove since then.  Just in case.

And this afternoon, I had to evict a library patron.  That is, if you consider a garter snake a patron.  It appeared near a workstation -- beside the foot of one of my student assistants.  We called appropriate personnel and one of the student workers put a recycling bin over it.  The snake wound up being transferred to an empty margarine container and will go home with someone.    I took a few photos (head or tail sticking out from underneath its prison) but you can't really see much.

I'm almost afraid to ponder what might appear next!

Guess it's a good thing I'm not a 1930's wife

My friend PlazaJen did COMPARATIVELY well on this test... My results:

-1 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Poor (Failure) Take the test!

The Joys of Cooler Weather

Autumn has arrived, much like a guest who arrives 15 minutes before the specified hour.  We're not quite ready for the mental adjustment, we think we have a little longer to pull out the appropriate clothes and check the table and the roast in the oven.

And like the early guest or even the drop-in guest, there are a few surprises.

For example, three garter (most likely) snakes have turned up in my place of employment.  One turned up in front of my office door.  I'm proud of one of my employees who captured the snake.  However, another staff member transferred the snake to another container and when he tried to let it loose outside there was no snake.  Hm.  A snake had been spotted on the floor above (almost directly above my office) the week before and another was spotted last week by the facilities folks.  Some people have made reference to "Snakes on a Plane."

Tonight I fed our visiting cats and stood with the sliding screen door open part of the time, petting Mooch to keep GW (or Evil Cat) away.  I closed the screen and then made coffee and visited the bathroom.  Sometime in there I also closed the glass sliding door. I heard something, then went to check on the cats.  When I opened the glass sliding door, a grey field mouse slipped from beside the bookcase to the screen.  The screen wasn't open, but I trapped it between glass and screen.

What to do?  I opened the glass a little bit, then closed it.  Eventually the mouse stayed away from the opening long enough for me to open the screen so it could get out.  And what did it do?  Ate a few bites of cat food. And finally scampered away.

Portia, our cat, was asleep in the bedroom the entire time.  I hope no other mice got in the house! 

Despite these adventures, it's been nice to wear different shoes (although like Charles Schultz's Peppermint Patty, I wouldn't mind wearing sandals year-round), pants, and long sleeves again.  As long as snakes aren't crawling out of them -- or mice!