Rachel came in wearing this get up. "Mom, this is what I'm going to be for Halloween!" She exclaims, puffing out her chest to show off the "S". I didn't have the heart to tell her it was a boys costume, partly because she would have said that the wild wig made it a girls get up or, let's just face it...
She's a huge tom boy and wouldn't have cared anyway.
She did take this off ONCE today to go pick up my truck from her uncle Dennis' body shop, she replaced it with a pink cheetah print dress with a slit so high she had to wear shorts. I didn't notice it until I followed her into the Alibi and I could see her back. Thank goodness Halloween comes only once a year. I can't imagine what my kids would wear on a daily basis.
So are you already for fall?
I say this like I'm confident that I am ready for fall. Do you want to know a secret? I'm not. I've got a Pumpkin Patch to start in officially 6 days and I have so much to do it's not even funny.
But, on to more important things. Not the fact that we picked 3,000 pounds of grapes for the winery this fall, but something much more sinister...
Mice.
About two weeks ago, the kids were ready to leave for school when it happened:
"Mom, I just saw a rat go into the laundry room." Levi said very matter-of-factly. Knowing that I would freak out to the ends of the Earth, Grace, my 8 year old says, "Levi you probably just saw a fly or a grasshopper. RIGHT?" I caught her looking at me to make sure I wasn't going to pass out.
"No, it was a rat. I seen it. It came from the mud room and ran past Cody's backpack."
"How big was this rat" I asked him trying to remain calm. Well, he showed me, and it was a "mouse size".
Thank goodness, but still gross.
I made Ron set traps...all over. A combination of them.
Well, the kids stepped on the glue traps. Clothes from the dryer fell out of the basket and were glued to traps. The broom stuck to the traps and still no mouse and I was wearing my barn boots.
It had been precisely an hour and half since the mouse sighting.
After Maggie came screaming into the bathroom with a victor trap on her finger, I decided to get the big guns...
"Socks", the sheep barn cat was coming in. Of course, this was just one mouse or so I hoped, but I was going to get it before it invited its friends in. I deliberated. Because after all, what if she had fleas? What would be worse? One mouse or fleas?
Definately one mouse...get the dang cat.
Well, Socks came in, not knowing what fleas look like, I searched her entire body for weird looking skin. She looked good and I put her to work.
After disappearing for half an hour, she finally came curling up to me acting like she could get used to the house when I felt her belly...she didn't "feel" full. I put her down in the basement...she went up those stairs faster then me. Finally someone that finds our basement as horrible as I do. I did again and the look I got from her meant that she was going to shut me down there when she beat me to the top a second time. I understood her look and then found her again relaxing under my bed.
I threw her back outside.
I waited...it had been 5 hours since the mouse spotting.
Naturally I couldn't continue to do the laundry. I was too scared. What if I lifted up a pair of someone's undies and found it to be a perfect hiding spot for the mouse. Nope. Not going in.
I thought about it and was going to clean the bathroom. It's really to close to the laundry room. I stayed away.
I finally went barefoot. I was daring.
Finally, Ron came in. He had caught the mouse in the last sticky trap that wasn't stuck to clothes, kids, broom or a wall.
All is well that ends well.
Sincerely,
Fairchild "mouse free" Farmgirl
