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| One of several beautiful sunsets last week. |
On Tuesday I finally got around to husking the hazelnuts I picked a few weeks ago. It took me about an hour to get all the nuts out of the husks. There were several hundred hazelnuts when I was done and I was so happy. I love hazelnuts. I roasted them in the oven and set them to cool on the stove top. I was going to shell them, but I didn’t have time so I decided to wait until the next day. On Wednesday morning when I went into the kitchen, I was shocked to see there were only about twenty nuts on the tray. My first thought was that Hannah or Josiah had done something with them, but they denied it. The only other possibility was rodents. We have plenty of rodents around – chipmunks, red squirrels, deer mice, the occasional field rat. We’ve been invaded by them before. We’re always chasing chipmunks and red squirrels away from the bird feeders. Last year we found that chipmunks had cached sunflower seeds taken from the bird feeders in boxes of Christmas ornaments stored upstairs. Sometimes in the night we hear deer mice scampering in the ceiling/floor space. I accept it as being part of life in the country.
But this time I was angry. All that trouble just to have my hazelnuts stolen by rodents. A little while later, as I was making my lunch to take to school, I opened the drawer where we keep the zip lock bags and there I found a little stash of hazelnuts. That evening, when I opened the drawer where we keep the hot pads, I found another stash. And there were more in the drawer with the dish towels. I stole back the nuts – they hadn’t been cracked. I suspect the thieves are white-footed deer mice. They are pretty little animals and I don’t mind them when they stay outdoors, but they can’t come in the house. And they can’t take my hazelnuts. We’re going to set traps and in the meantime, I’ve moved the remaining and recovered nuts to a more secure location.
If that was all, just deer mice and hazelnuts, I would have been happy. Beginning midweek, we noticed a bad smell in the house. It got worse as the days went by. Accusations were getting personal. Was somebody having personal hygiene problems? No. Was it the sauerkraut I had fermenting in a crock in the kitchen? No, I’d bagged and frozen that kraut last week. Was it the paint I was using in my work room? No, paint doesn’t smell like that. By Friday it was very stinky. Saturday morning Stacey discovered the culprit – a large field rat, dead and decomposing in the back of the cupboard in the upstairs bathroom. We disposed of it and sprayed a lot of disinfectant around and the smell went away. We breathed a sigh of relief, really.
Our house is old – one hundred and forty-six years old, to be exact. The foundation is made of fieldstone. There are a hundred ways a small and determined animal can get into our house. We live in the country surrounded by fields, farmland, and forest. We have an abundance of wildlife all around us – skunks, possums, raccoons, weasels, porcupines, woodchucks, deer, coyotes, foxes, beavers, moles, voles, deer mice, chipmunks, red squirrels, gray squirrels, field rats, birds, bats, and a myriad of insects and arachnids. For the most part we dwell in peaceful coexistence -- they have their place in the world, we have ours, and there is some allowable overlap. But sometimes things get out of balance and measures must be taken. Usually it’s the rodents who cause the problems and break the truce. They invade the barn (we had a field rat infestation a few years ago), or the garden (case in point, this year’s woodchuck problem), the lawn (right now I have moles burrowing all over the lawn at the end of the yard – I know they aren’t rodents, but they may as well be), and the house. And then it’s war. The Rodent War has escalated. I might not be able to win completely, but I hope to create some casualties.
But this time I was angry. All that trouble just to have my hazelnuts stolen by rodents. A little while later, as I was making my lunch to take to school, I opened the drawer where we keep the zip lock bags and there I found a little stash of hazelnuts. That evening, when I opened the drawer where we keep the hot pads, I found another stash. And there were more in the drawer with the dish towels. I stole back the nuts – they hadn’t been cracked. I suspect the thieves are white-footed deer mice. They are pretty little animals and I don’t mind them when they stay outdoors, but they can’t come in the house. And they can’t take my hazelnuts. We’re going to set traps and in the meantime, I’ve moved the remaining and recovered nuts to a more secure location.
If that was all, just deer mice and hazelnuts, I would have been happy. Beginning midweek, we noticed a bad smell in the house. It got worse as the days went by. Accusations were getting personal. Was somebody having personal hygiene problems? No. Was it the sauerkraut I had fermenting in a crock in the kitchen? No, I’d bagged and frozen that kraut last week. Was it the paint I was using in my work room? No, paint doesn’t smell like that. By Friday it was very stinky. Saturday morning Stacey discovered the culprit – a large field rat, dead and decomposing in the back of the cupboard in the upstairs bathroom. We disposed of it and sprayed a lot of disinfectant around and the smell went away. We breathed a sigh of relief, really.
Our house is old – one hundred and forty-six years old, to be exact. The foundation is made of fieldstone. There are a hundred ways a small and determined animal can get into our house. We live in the country surrounded by fields, farmland, and forest. We have an abundance of wildlife all around us – skunks, possums, raccoons, weasels, porcupines, woodchucks, deer, coyotes, foxes, beavers, moles, voles, deer mice, chipmunks, red squirrels, gray squirrels, field rats, birds, bats, and a myriad of insects and arachnids. For the most part we dwell in peaceful coexistence -- they have their place in the world, we have ours, and there is some allowable overlap. But sometimes things get out of balance and measures must be taken. Usually it’s the rodents who cause the problems and break the truce. They invade the barn (we had a field rat infestation a few years ago), or the garden (case in point, this year’s woodchuck problem), the lawn (right now I have moles burrowing all over the lawn at the end of the yard – I know they aren’t rodents, but they may as well be), and the house. And then it’s war. The Rodent War has escalated. I might not be able to win completely, but I hope to create some casualties.
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| My Christmas cactus in bud! |
Aside from the animal violence, the week was great. We had wonderful weather most of the week – temperatures in the high 70's – unusual but very welcome in November. It has cooled down again, but it was nice while it lasted. I harvested my cabbages on Friday. There were four of them that survived the woodchuck (a rodent). They are the biggest cabbages I’ve grown yet. I didn’t know how we were going to store them, they seemed too big to fit in the refrigerator, but Stacey pared them down and wrapped them and made them fit. We’ll be eating cabbage well into next spring – a happy thought.
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| Cabbages. |
On Saturday evening Josiah went up on the roof and cleaned the rain gutters. The trees have stopped shedding leaves and the gutters have to be clean before the snow comes. I’m glad he’s brave enough to go up on the roof. I can’t do it. It’s good to have that job checked off the list. The list is getting shorter – and so are the days.
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| Josiah on the roof. |
