Tweets and Such

 

Bridie did not have to wear the Elizabethan collar yesterday, as long as she chewed on something besides her bandage.

So, the pieces of wood out in their play area provided some good chewing. 

She actually was a "good Bridie" through most of the day. 

Bill and I are both happy to feel the cold and see some dry, frozen ground for a few days.  Bridie's bandage should stay dry, and, in the house, we keep a close eye. 

The second she goes after the bandage, she gets the collar instead. 

Last night while putting hay out in the horses' barnyard, I listened to tweets.  

And, they were not on Twitter. 

They came from treetops along the barnyard fence line. 

A great number of song birds have joined the winter gang, and the air was full of melodious loveliness. 

During that same time, I also heard honking, and it wasn't from the road. 

Again, the sounds came from the skies as a flock of geese flew over with the usual announcement that "We're here, and we're headed somewhere else." 

This morning I heard no birds, just the roaring of a brisk, cold wind, definitely a harbinger of the frigid air temperatures forecast for the next couple of days. 

Maybe when this freeze ends, we'll see and feel some more progress toward spring.

For now, all we've experienced is teasers. 

When I'm finished with this morning's post, Bill and I will make an assault on the garage. 

The white pickup will be parked and ready to go, once we load up a bunch of boxes and bags, which have been occupying space around the garage. 

We've done urgent cleanup of the garage before. 

One time a cleansing was prompted by Bill's sighting of a snake near the door leading into the shop. 

Talk about fast action.  I think we'd moved everything in that garage to the outside in twenty minutes or so.

Never did find the snake, but, by golly, the garage got cleaned.

Memories of another hasty deep clean have prompted us to go to take on the project again this morning. 

A couple of times when Bill has taken the dogs out, Bridie has had No. 1 accidents on the new runner leading from door to door. 

And, so, we've just thought those accidents probably contributed to the faint smell of urine. 

Let's just say that over the past few days, the smell has intensified and seems almost ubiquitous. 

Let's also add to the mix that yesterday I saw a mouse scurry from the box next to a door where we throw all our boots. 

With that sighting, stuff started adding up, including the memory of when we smelled unusually strong urine before and found, through our fast and furious cleaning, that mice had occupied some of those boxes, long enough to produce a whole lot more mice. 

To describe the scene of throwing a box outside the garage door and seeing dozens of mini mice falling out and running every which direction----just thinking about that scene makes my skin crawl. 

We found nests in two or three boxes that time. 

After the first discovery, we carried the other suspect boxes down the lane and dumped them so all those little varmints could go somewhere else besides our house. 

When we think about it, this winter has provided a perfect storm for such a phenomenon. 

So, with haste, we'll clear out the areas and probably haul a whole bunch of boxes and bags to the dump today. 

I told Bill we have a similar situation in the tack room of the barn where Sunny, the barn cat, gets her Meow Mix. 

Hard to believe, but when we think of our world turning upside down over the past two years, it shouldn't surprise us to learn that mice are eating out of the same dish as the barn cat. 

She lets them do it too.  She must like the company. It wouldn't surprise me to walk out there some morning and catch a bunch of the critters snuggled up with Sunny. 

So, there will be a purge out in the tack room too. 

I think winters like this one bring on such disgusting phenomena.  

Anyway, that's our big mission on this President's Day.  I guess we have the mice to thank for inspiring our cleaning operation.  

By day's end, I'm thinking the garage should smell a whole lot better. 

Happy Monday. 

 

Willie had a bath over the weekend.

Willie, the Border Collie, that is. 

For those who may just be joining in on Connie's blog posts.  

Willie is a pup she and Jon brought home a couple of weeks before we purchased Bridie.

Willie is a nickname for Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson, who inspired the Burkhart's dog-naming process. 

So, read on about just who got the bath.  

https://retiredmtnlady.blogspot.com/

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And, the geocachers in the California desert met their goal, even several hours before their midnight deadline.  Annie even added another 1,000 caches to her lifetime total. 

The game of geocaching may not always be about the numbers, but today was about the numbers. 1234 of them to be exact. “Easy as 1-2-3-4!”

A couple of years ago I got together with an awesome group of people to see if we could get 1000 caches in a day via a power trail. We got 1001 and could have gotten more. 

So today, most of the same group and a couple new caching friends decided to try for a fun number goal - 1234. We started at midnight and finished just after 7pm. With just about an hour or so of sleep, we stuck to our plans and accomplished our goal.

While I love a hard hike up to the top of a mountain for one cache, the camaraderie, the fun, the laughs, the physical and mental challenge of achieving a goal like this are just another reason I love this game.

                                                 ---Annie Love