Sunday, October 24, 2010

The garden's last blooms

It was very warm today (high 70's) so I began the process of cutting back the perennial garden.  I have a few plants that continue to bloom.

The digitalis (foxglove) still looks beautiful.

I also have one echinacea (coneflower) that bloomed very late and is just glorious right now.


I started relocating some plants and also thinned some out.  It is supposed to remain unseasonably warm for a few days which will give me the opportunity to finish up before a hard frost.  It was nice to be out in the sunshine and doing a little manual labor!

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Update

After pushing an entire bag of this
into the opening and then spraying in this


and then shoving in half a bat of this
my brother was finished....confident the mice could no longer get in and no more cold air in my kitchen!

Alas, apparently a mouse or two was hidden somewhere in the kitchen.  I know because Gracie brought one up to me in the studio as a gift.  Thankfully, her latest "giftie" was intact and just dead.  (I sent Grace back to the kitchen to search for more!)




Sunday, October 17, 2010

Project time

From Google Images
About a week ago I walked into my kitchen for my second cup of morning coffee.  As I was walking in, the cat was running out.  Imagine my surprise (horror) at finding a partially disemboweled mouse in the middle of the kitchen floor!  I did a really good job of not freaking out and screaming like a little girl.  I calmly tried to think of how to clean up the mouse and who could I call so I didn't have to do it myself!  I kept saying to the cat, "Good job, Gracie.  You are such a good mouser."  I didn't want her to think she had done something bad.  I was so hoping the mouse was a loner...lost from a pack of little mice living happily in the backyard.  Sadly, that was just a dream.  Two days later Grace left another "gift" for me at the top of the stairs.  Again, I told her how proud I was of her and what a good cat she is.  That night I didn't sleep very well.  I knew the mice had to go and they had to go immediately!  I think I have figured out how they are getting in and have enlisted the aid of my brother in sealing their entry point.  Today is "shove in the steel wool and squirt insulation day".  

Wish me luck...my feet hurt from stamping them to scare off intruders when I walk into the kitchen!