The great mouse chase, fishing before the storm, three little pigs

A couple day ago, as I was sitting at the table in our dining nook, I heard Mama scream from the front porch. It was one of her “There’s a mouse!” scream so I paid little attention to it at first. But the screams continued periodically, followed by laughter from both Mama and Grandpa, who was helping Mama blow leaves and accumulated birdseed off the porch. The laughter was as loud as the screams, so I did not hurry to investigate. When I did join them on the porch, I found out the rest of the story.

In Mama’s blowing out the unreachable nooks and crannies of the porch, she had dislodged a mouse from it’s hiding place. However, the mouse did not merely run around the surface of the porch from one hiding place to another, that would have been bad enough. Instead it scampered up the brick walls of the house surrounding the porch on three sides. It was when the mouse took its vertical route that Mama screamed the loudest. 

To protect Mama from the dangerous rodent, Grandpa had grabbed the broom we leave on the porch and was trying to kill the mouse by knocking it from the wall and stabbing at it with the broom. That sufficed only to encourage the mouse to return to the surface of the porch where it would run in Mama’s direction. Eliciting another round of screaming. This went on for several minutes. 

Mama came into the house to get my help, but I told her there was very little hope of killing the mouse with all the obstacles we had sitting on the porch. She was adamant that I try anyway. By the time I got outside, Grandma had joined in the hunt, but no one had seen where the mouse last had hidden itself. We never saw the mouse again.

One of two things will likely happen. Either the mouse will see the folly of trying to occupy the front porch or it will go and gather several other mice to join it in the game of dodging the broom while a silly human cheers them on. 

Yesterday evening  I went fishing on the quarry lakes. Since I had my truck available, I drove over, which changes my approach to the water. The place I normally fish is quickly accessible by foot when I scamper down a steep incline to the lake. When I drive over, it is a long hike to the same location, so I was fishing from a different spot on the lower lake. 

Since I had no luck catching anything but grass. I packed up and drove to the upper lakes. On my first cast into the smaller of those lakes, I caught a nice bass, but it was too little to keep. Over the course of forty-five minutes, I landed another nine small bass. Nothing worth keeping, but always fun to catch them. By the time I loaded up and drove home, a slight rain was falling.

The storm that did finally come, hours later than predicted, was a severe storm. While we did not get any of the tornados forecast, we did get very high winds and over an inch of rain. The lightning and thunder were mesmerizing. Both continued well into the early morning hours. Every time the lightening woke me, I would count the seconds before the thunder sounded to calculate how far away the lightening had struck. It is better than counting sheep.

The three surviving piglets of the sow Norman shot have adopted our farm and have showed up several times a day around the area where we are raising our pigs. With the over-population of wild hogs, it is senseless to wish them to survive, but that is exactly what is happening. Mama is even talking about scattering some feed for the little ones in the patches of ground where they root for food. It is an exercise in foolishness, because when they get bigger, we will be forced to shoot them. But for now, they have garnered our sympathy. Silly humans!

I had an appointment with my ENT yesterday morning. He was pleased with my progress and suggested that I take voice lessons to not only strengthen my voice, but also to learn to use in more effectively. I will seriously consider his advice, but the price may be prohibitive. The doctor predicts that the surgery to my vocal cords will be able to help me retain my voice for a year or longer. I am praying he is correct. 

Tomorrow afternoon I have an appointment with my cardiologist. I am praying Mama and I will get some answers to the current condition of my heart. Time will tell.