Back at it!

Wow! It's been a long time since I posted last.  A lot has happened!  We finished the shed.  It's closed up nice and tight and the last few times we went out to the farm there were no mice in the traps!!!!  We'll see what spring shows.  I'm getting the itch and am gearing up to plant seeds for the garden.  Still trying new things and this year will be no different.  I haven't quite got the gardening thing down yet.  It's hard when you can only weed once a week, so you have to outsmart the weeds instead of out muscle them!  Lots of newspaper going to be used as mulch this year.  Yet another experiment.
We have to get out there for the first time this spring and prune the hundred and some apple trees.  That makes for a rough day.  By the end of the orchard, my cutting hand is pretty tired!  Pruning marks the opening of farming season and I'm looking forward to it again!
Did you notice a new look to my blog?  My daughter is getting into graphic design and web design and she did some work on it yesterday.  I think it turned out pretty nice!  Thank you, Rhyah!

Jeff 2 Mice 2

Well, it's a slow hunt, but Jeff has gotten two mice now.  Amazing how when he tells the story, his chest seems bigger!!!  Last weekend, when he closed the hood of the tractor to pull it out of the shed, a mouse dropped to the floor from the engine compartment.  Jeff gave it a kick as it ran and it ducked under the plywood ramp at the doorway.  Jeff pulled the tractor out of the shed and went about hooking things up.  During this time, one of the dogs was sniffing and digging at the ramp.  Duh!  The mouse ran under there!  The insistent digging continued for so long, I pulled the ramp aside to find.......a flat mouse!  He ran for cover, only to be squished by the tractor's weight!!!! Jeff 1 Mice 2.
This weekend Jeff went to the farm alone.  He had his traps loaded and set and when he checked, one was sprung but no mouse was in it!  But there was a dead mouse under the tractor!  Jeff 2 Mice 2.  I don't know what happens in that shed when we're not there, but it's weird.  I'll be glad when all the holes are closed up and we don't have to worry about this anymore!
Some farmer I'm gonna be when I don't even like killing mice!  What will I do when my hens quit laying and Jeff wants to cook them?  I'll be buying eggs at the store and putting them under the hens!!!!  I hate to see things die.  Why am I not a vegetarian???????

Mouse Hunt

For the last two weeks, Jeff has set four mouse traps in the shed baited with peanut butter.  For two weeks, we opened the shed to find four traps un-sprung minus the peanut butter!!!!  Mouse 2.  Jeff 0.
I'm afraid the score is going to even out this week though.  Jeff bought a heavier, more sensitive trap.  I won't enter the shed until the evidence is gone.  I can't stand the idea of their cute little bodies crushed in the traps.  I know it has to be done.......but I can't be the one to do it!  Yes, I'm a softy.  

Found in the Hidden Creek

The Butterfly Effect

Something happens each year in early August that is so neat.  After a good rain, when there's still moisture in the gravel on the road, the Sulpher Butterflies congregate in SWARMS.  If you walk or drive down the road you do so amidst a yellow cloud of fluttering wings.  I've not seen it anywhere else.  That's not saying it doesn't happen, but I've not seen it before.  It's just so cool!

Future Monarchs of America!

We leave a stand of Milkweed just for this purpose.

There's a Mouse in the House (or how to drive a man crazy!)

Last weekend, when arriving at the farm, we opened the shed to get tools and look things over.  Under the front end of the tractor was a pile of gray fuzzy stuff.  I reached down to feel it and determined it was chewed up foam rubber......like the stuff lining the inside of the engine compartment of our new tractor!!!!!  I mentioned it to Jeff.......going ballistic doesn't quite describe his reaction.  There was a LOT or stomping and ranting and words I won't print here.  We decided we should look under the hood......but how to open it was a mystery.  While Jeff went to look at the "tractor instruction manual", I opened the door to the gas tank.  Staring back at me was "the mouse"!!!!!  I don't know who was more startled....me or him!  I shut the lid, then opened it again and he was GONE.....poof! 
Jeff came back and opened the hood and right on top next to the filler tube was a little nest, all nice and cozy.  Now came the threats of 1000 mouse traps, 10 cats and rat snakes.  I say, just leave the hood open so it's not so cozy!  Gotta admit, they are very cute!