Stories of spring
This spring has certainly sprung some surprises, some better than others:
Ralph S. Mouse (the S stands for smart)
Let’s begin with a story of the mouse. If you have followed my stories for some years now, you might recall the story of j.w catching a live mouse with a waste basket. I was hoping it was a one-time incident; instead, I found myself mentioning to j.w that I saw a grey blob scurrying near the baseboard on the kitchen floor as I was chatting with j.wu after small group one night. j.w investigated and found some droppings in the corner of our kitchen floor! We eventually found a few favourite places it liked to hide when we saw signs of it: particularly behind the bookcase in the basement and behind/in the stove; and, I had accidentally discovered where it likely came from: the range hood vent. I only know this because I went into the cupboard above the stove and found the silicon sleeve on our coffee carafe broken. My first thought? How cheap! And then, one of us realized it had been chewed through. Lo and behold, there was a bunch of droppings all over the cupboard, which of course I had missed because of my height. Who knows how long it’s been living among us!
So, the cat and mouse game began. First, the live traps were placed, but they consistently turned up empty, and there was no sign of a mouse anywhere; it seemed that even the food crumbs from our children’s messy eating habits were ignored. Until. I found a bun stuck between where the oven vents out into the stove a couple of weeks later. I was baffled at how it got there as I had thrown it out into the green bin bag myself; then I realized that the mouse must have tried to sneak it into its hiding place by going through the oven vents and because the bun was so big, it jammed!! Well, within 24 hours of placing the snap trap that PT recommended, it caught it. And, there hasn’t been a mouse indoors since. And now, the little ants have returned (they get into the house every spring for a few weeks until the powder keeps them away); oddly [ref] it’s odd because she’s afraid of bugs in general, like spiders [/ref], Bean says she likes them and even have picked up a few to watch them crawl on her hands.
120 km/h wind storm
If a trees falls in a forest, does it make a sound? It certainly makes a big splash.
Then there was the ice storm and the wind storm, followed by some wicked summer weather (30C plus). The ice storm wasn’t much of an ice storm compared to the earlier ones, but the wind storm knocked down many trees. I happened to be sitting on the couch looking out into the forest and saw a giant tree fall into the bog – it was quite the splash. Our loose fascia ripped off and it’s missing – but we discovered that it was loose in the first place because annoying wasps had made a nest under it a while back. But, we were the fortunate ones, roofing and other repair companies are at capacity for the next month or so because some other houses had batches of shingles and even the siding at the side of the house stripped off from the wind! I still see big trees on the ground or on wooden fences around the neighbourhoods we drive by.
Team dynamics
I’m approaching 6 months, and a new office! Within the last few months, I’ve discovered some interesting stats about the makeup of our current team; our newest hire will change it but until then:
https://www.canva.com/design/DAC5ExYkm3A/view
Nose injuries
Well, since our mild hand-foot-mouth incident with our little guy (“diagnosed by Google” when we noticed that his fingernails were peeling a few weeks following rash symptoms), he’s had a couple of accidents:
- He fell from the steps onto his nose. Thankfully, it was a superficial injury, so it healed up relatively quickly. Now we can say that they both have fallen down the stairs at the same age (she rolled down a whole flight from what I could tell and sustained carpet burn injuries)
- A few weeks later, after it healed, he falls from a trike onto the gym floor and on his nose again. His nose was bleeding off and on for a day, so we took him to the doctor before a trip, just to make sure he was okay. Thankfully, he was fine (and no concussions either as they don’t wear helmets inside)!
The better surprises
Two visits – the highlights!
- A lovely visit from a friend and her family from Hong Kong, whom I haven’t seen in a few years :)
- A last-minute trip to Orlando (again) for almost a week – a separate post will follow since we skipped all theme parks this time around!