Thanksgiving 2015

This year we are grateful for the following things in alphabetical order:  ammo, buffet, cookie, democracy, education, Florida, God/grand jury/grandchildren, health, imagination, job, knowledge, life, music, naps, oxygen, police officers, quiet, rain, summer, the letter s, USA, very small animals, winer, Xanadu, yelling find words, and zoos.

 

Compost Thief

I've been busy today getting ready for the holiday.  Cleaning, baking and cooking took up most of my time.  As I worked I watched the gray squirrels gathering the last of the crab apples from the trees.  The last apples are the hardest to get because they're at the very end of the branches.  As the squirrel progresses down the branch, the weight of the squirrel makes the branch hang lower and lower and lower until the squirrel is completely vertical.  This vertical position makes it hard for the squirrel to let go, grab a crab apple, cram it in it's mouth and walk backwards up the branch again. Sometimes they loose their grip and fall to the snowy ground. As I work I keep adding things to the compost bucket on my deck.  I add things like onion skins, potato peelings, celery trimmings, egg shells, and apple cores.  Suddenly I hear a knock at the deck door.  There on the deck is a squirrel peering in the deck door.  Before it leaves the squirrel grabs a honey crisp apple core from the compost bucket.  I guess that makes sense.  A honey crisp core has a lot sweeter and fresher fruit on it than some dried up crab apple hanging on the very end of the branch.  I don't think it's necessary for the squirrel to knock on my deck door though.  Was it expecting more from me?

The Last Talk with Lola Faye

I wasn't expecting to get drawn into The Last Talk with Lola Faye by Thomas H. Cook as much as I did.  I grabbed the book from the library shelf because it was displayed directly on the shelf (instead of lined up straight with all the boring books) and because I was thinking of Captain Cook and the Great Barrier Reef.  So even though I picked up the book for not the best reasons, this was a page turner of a book.  It's just a conversation between a guy and a woman who used to work in his father's store but the conversation is fascinating!  There are two sides to every story and Lola's story is much different than Lucas' story.  Lucas thinks he's so smart because he went to Harvard while Lola stayed in a small town in Alabama.  As the conversation progresses, Lucas realizes there is more to Lola than he thought. Her comments and her thought provoking questions  lead him to realize she's got a lot more going on than he thought she did AND his assumptions about her were all wrong.  I wondered what Lola had in mind when she began this conversation because it's very clear she is leading the discussion down a premeditated path.  Who is Lola?  A boring small town store clerk or a dark woman with a checkered past?  And who is Lucas?  A published PhD in town on a book tour or a selfish man/child who has a lot of growing up to do?  This was a great book that I read quickly in two sittings.

Buck Norris

I finally caught the third (and I hope final) mouse.  His name, I think was Chuck; Chuck Norris the mouse.  Well, since I caught him, maybe he wasn't Chuck Norris but his close cousin Buck Norris.  This mouse was tricky.  I put peanut butter down in the center of a glue trap and when I look the next morning, I find the peanut butter gone.  How did it do that?  Did the mouse suspend himself from the top of the drawer and hang down to eat the peanut butter?  Because all the peanut butter was gone but no mouse was stuck in the glue.  I rigged up some wooden snap mouse traps with peanut butter. I know these mouse traps work because I accidentally snapped myself and I have a bruise on the knuckle of my right pointer finger.  Three mornings in a row I find the mouse trap unsnapped but free of peanut butter. What the heck?  Am I feeding the mice now?  Are they living large on extra portions of commercial peanut butter? So I bought newer snap mouse traps at the hardware store because I am sick and tired of feeding mice peanut butter and failing to catch them.  That and I am sick and tired of washing ALL my silverware over and over and over again.  I can't stand the thought of mouse turds in my silverware.  I must have the cleanest silverware in town.  I put a new glue trap loaded with peanut butter in the empty silverware drawer.  I add a new mouse snap trap loaded with Jiffy Extra Crunchy.  I sit down to watch television.  I hear a SNAP!  I hear some rustling in the silverware drawer.  Dreading a gory scene, I wince as I open the silver ware drawer.  What do I find?  I find a horrible scene.  Horrible!! Both the snap trap and the glue trap are clear of peanut butter but no mouse in the freaking drawer.  How does this happen?  Is this mouse a ninja?  Now I am really teed off.  I figure the mouse live downstairs and come up into the kitchen at night through the walls and into the cabinets under the kitchen sink, behind the dishwasher, and under the silverware drawer.  I buy 4 more mouse traps.  I load all four of them with more Jiffy Extra Chunky.  I set 3 of them on the washing machine downstairs and the last one in the silverware drawer with another glue trap, also loaded with peanut butter.  This morning I found the mouse stuck to the glue trap.  I'm sad that a creature had to die this horrible way but I'm glad to get this pest out of the house.  Now I can sanitize the silverware drawer again.  I'll shake out the turds, wash it with soap and water, let it dry, and spray it with Lysol.  I think I'll give it a few days before I put the silverware back in the drawer just to make sure.  I hope this war is over.

Moving to Winter HQ

Something is missing!

Our coop?  Where is it?

WTH?

It's a good thing the human carried us over here to the winter headquarters.

Nice and cozy in here.

So glad to have a coop again.

Noah

A family member gave me this book to read.  "Take it," he said, "It's not that good."  Confused and torn between taking and leaving the book, I took it.  I read Noah  by Mark Morris and I liked it.  This exploration of the biblical story of Noah and his wife and three sons was pretty good.  Noah likes animals.  He and his family are vegetarians.  The birds, animals and reptiles go into a hibernation state while they're on the ark.  Not all of the animals make the trip.  Some are killed when the ark rolls back and forth in the first waves of water.  Others are killed when the ark strikes a mountain top at the end of the voyage.  Noah is a difficult man to live with and he alienates all of his family.  This was a good book and it kept my interest.

What Is An Athlete?

I know this woman casually from talking to her at the gym.  We've chatted for years off and on when we run into each other in the locker room.  We don't know each other well.  In fact, I don't even know her name.  I do know she works out frequently and has competed in 33 triathalons (swim/bike/run).  She's not going to do any more triathalons because she doesn't like the way people push her under water at the beginning of the swimming segment.  She is very talkative and tonight, when she was talking, she called me athletic.  I demurred and said something like, "Well, I try."  She said women discount themselves more than men when it comes to being an athlete.  She said I should consider myself an athlete.  I told her the only time I feel nimble is when I am swimming but she continued to insist that I was athletic.  I consider her athletic because she works out frequently and has competed in 33 triathalons.  I've never done any kind of "athalons" much less a triathalon.  I exercise a lot and I am more physically fit that some people but less physically fit than others who are older than me. I guess I think team members are certainly athletes.  I guess I don't really know what makes an athlete.  What I do know for sure is that this other woman's opinion of me as an athlete made me feel really great.