Life in This Little House

  
   We had an uninvited guest in the house last night after supper.  It had rained several times yesterday and was rather chilly outside, hell no, it was cold!  I kept hearing the plastic grocery bags rattling and if I got up to check, the noise stopped.  The windows and doors were closed so it wasn't a breeze and Fanny the Brave kept growling with her tail tucked between her legs.  Finally I got Jeff to move the box of cardboard boxes and bag of grocery bags out onto the porch and the noises stopped. You'd think living out here in my little house in the little woods since I was 12 I'd be use to an occasional uninvited guest but it still spooks me!  Over the years we've had mice, bats, and squirrels pay a visit and some more unusual visitors, too.  The noisiest guest was the wood duck who lost it's perch on the chimney and fell into the fireplace!  Good thing it was in the middle of summer and there wasn't a fire!  It knocked itself for a loop but when it regained consciousness made a big racket! I was home alone (Josie and Tony were living at camp for the summer) and scared silly!  Finally I threw a towel over the duck and shoved it into a bag.  I dumped the duck out the kitchen door and it managed to fly away.  Then one day a couple of summers ago I walked into the bathroom to find an adult grass snake curled up on  the floor.  I'm not sure how it got in...if it came in thru the kitchen it must have been in the house quite awhile to get to the bathroom!  I wasn't going to touch it even with a towel and for a couple of minutes I just stood there.  Then I remembered the thing Mom always called her 'reacher' and managed to wrap the snake around the grabber part of it and carry it to the door.  Dad always said the lawnmower scared these snakes with their vibrations.  Well, I was shaking pretty bad carrying the snake on the grabber thru the house so maybe that worked, too.  Over the years I've gotten pretty good catching bats with a small box or a jar and a piece of cardboard...not that I enjoy doing it!  I can't see killing a bat when it eats so many mosquitos in a single night.  And if you've ever caught a bat and looked at it up close they're not that bad or scary.  Most of the time their little chest is heaving like crazy after flying around your house trying to get away!  I am a little paranoid about shutting one door before opening another during baby bat season (right now) when we go in or out!  I don't think bats will be a big problem this year since we have a family of owls in the woods this year.  That brings us to mice.  They are a pest that I fight constantly.  We have D-con in the attic and cellar all year around.  And now with the new puppy coming next month I will have to be careful where I put it!  At least now, I can get D-con in a plastic maze instead of an open cardboard box and that's safer around other animals.  The hardest guest to evict was a squirrel who decided to set up housekeeping in the attic.  Somebody suggest using a Have-a-Heart trap but then I'd have a squirrel going wild in a trap instead of just running around in my attic.  Ended up using something called Havoc that is no longer available.  But it worked and the squirrel was evicted...and the holes plugged.
      June is almost over and Jeff still hasn't put in a single plant. He just hasn't got it in him this year to be a farmer.  He even bought new shoes thinking that would help his back...and it did but not enough.  It's sad to see him try to walk around Walmart...he stops and 'examines' displays every 8 or 10 ft along the isle.  He's pretty sure a back surgery is in his not-to-distant future and that won't happen until his blood sugar/ A1C are stable.  And the pain is part of what's keeping them out of whack!  Our diet has become so boring.  We're really watching the carbs...and that's good for both of us but.... 
    I finally got my INR back in range...at least it was on Friday.  Got 2 weeks to go before I have to test again and we'll just see.  I'm trying to limit myself to 3 servings of greens/salad a week.  I'd rather have it more often so I'll slowly increase my servings as my doctor increases the length of time between testing. 
   The shop has been doing very well this season.  I can barely keep up with the hats!  This weekend I worked on shawls...and didn't get anywhere fast.  I spent 2 days on 1 shawl and ripped it out 4 times.  Either there is a mistake in the directions or I'm not reading them correctly!  Monday I started another 
shawl...a less cerebral one that I've done before and am just about ready to start the fancy part. Hope that goes as planned...all I don't need is a phone call from the shop telling me what I sold and need to replace on Friday!  (That call came and the shawl had to be put aside so I could make a baby sweater & hat set.)  I also spent some time over the weekend online looking for patterns and found a cute baby doll pattern.  It was an British pattern and was offered for sale by the designer.  I don't like to buy patterns like that...hell, I don't like to buy patterns, period!  But this doll looks so cute I clicked on the link and was surprised that the price...when converted from pounds to dollars...was less than $4.  So I bought it!  I want to stop at the library and print out the directions.  I just hope I can get a couple of these done and into the shop quickly.  And that they sell!
   The biggest news is that our baby...dog...will be coming home around July 24th.  She is a pure bred beagle who is a gift to Jeff from a former co-worker.  Doug's (the co-worker) daughter breeds beagles in Hinckley, NY., and we went up there to pick out the puppy last week.  Jeff had his choice of a male or female (I wanted the male...he was so laidback and cute!) but Jeff thought the little female had spunk. I don't think he realized that now he'll be living with 3 females!  Fanny didn't know what to make of any of the puppies...there were 4...so we took that as a good sign.   Jeff doesn't like the first name I picked out for the puppy (Wilma), the alternative's I've come up with so far are 'Lucy' and 'Zoey'.  We're still deciding.  He thinks 'Dawg' would be fine.  NOT!