in response to yesterday's comment...

I have not "checked the trapline" with Trey, but I really don't think it goes like this:

murine update

Three mice dead. Since Trey got back, he's taken over responsibility and calls his morning trip to the basement to inspect for new casualties in the basement "checking the trap line". The fact that the trap line is only 10 feet long in total does rather detract from the impression that he is keeping up the tradition of early French fur traders.

expect no improvement, plus vermin

Here's a rare blog post from me, but posting frequency is likely to remain low with Trey out of town at a trade show and still no internet at home! Rather than slowly adjusting to lack of internet, it seems to keep getting worse. Trey is engaging our probable DSL provider in a game of who can be a bigger jerk, but these people are notorious experts. So, it will still probably be a while. Boo!

Meanwhile, we discovered evidence of mice in the garage and -much, much worse- in the kitchen. After a Wal-Mart trip last night, we are now the owners of several "you don't have to see or touch the mouse" style traps and a small jar of dedicated mouse bait peanut butter. And, yes, I have killed lab mice via cervical dislocation with my bare hands and I was raised by a mother who got impatient with our slowness to stomp on giant rats. I should be using the cheap, more environmentally conscious and reusable regular style mouse trap. So, I'll officially blame my choice on wanting to decrease the chance of pinching tiny fingers or a dog snout in the trap. But another factor here is that it's just really disconcerting to open your silverware drawer and see mouse poop and I just don't want to deal with the reality of a trapped mouse or its corpse.

Anyway, since Ellis was with me at the store last night, he had to get a full explanation of how the traps work, where the peanut butter goes, and where exactly in the house the mice might be during the day and night. He woke up this morning demanding to go downstairs and check the traps for mice...it was seriously like he thought it was Christmas. I'm sure this would be just an oh so valuable lesson for him on the realities of country life, but I planning to wait until he's in bed tonight to check the traps. Some of the traps I bought can also keep the mice alive (their advantage is they can hold multiple mice) and I'm not sure I can manage to keep both me and Ellis calm in the event that they are full.

Better Than Photos of the House

These guys, 10 in all, have made three or four appearances under the feeders and they will stick around for up to an hour as long as Scout is kept inside. Ellis spotted them the first time after I had already left for work and sprinted upstairs to tell his mother. Then he carefully explained how he and daddy were going to hunt them. Rachel suggested that perhaps killing things under the feeder was not very sporting and that we should go to the woods and find some other turkeys before killing one. He was not satisfied and told her, "Mom, these turkeys. We will get the skin off, get the chicken [sic] out and throw the bones outside."

There was just this one tom in the bunch. His beard was probably 4-5 inches, but at least two of the hens in the group were much bigger than him.

We actually did ask Ellis if he understood that in his scenario the turkey ends up dead and he seemed quite comfortable with that, and reminded Rachel that it will be dead when we get the skin off and chicken out.

House, no internet

I am sorry for the lack of posts and the lack of pictures. We have no internet at home. That will change Tuesday. Until then here are a couple of scraps: