Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Mouse Removal, Contest Winnings, and First Robin

This week's schedule is full of things that need to be done. None of them involve fun. Some weeks are like that.

I had tasks listed out by day. I knew I probably wouldn't get all of them accomplished, but had high hopes of eliminating most of them. The perfect recipe for an expensive, time consuming, unpleasant surprise.


Yesterday morning I got in the car to go to Bible study, turned on the heater, and pieces of car foam and shredded Kleenex blew out every vent.

So today I spent the afternoon sitting at the Toyota dealership while they dismantled my dash and cleaned out the mouse nest. No rodents were found.

People have been telling me Irish Spring soap in the car works well to keep the rodents away. I've got the car loaded with bright green bars of the stuff. Unfortunately Irish Spring smells so awful it makes me want to stay away as well. Happy St. Patricks Day!


On a more pleasant note - a much more pleasant note - I won Linda Jo's Blogiversary contest.

Yesterday while I was pondering how much it was going to cost to get the car cleaned out, a package of wonderful things arrived in the mail for distraction.

It's that delicious North Idaho Huckleberry Jam. (John and Anne, remember this for Christmas next year.) Also a skein of Zauberball and a lovely bracelet.

Linda Jo makes beautiful beaded things when she's not busy knitting. That's why her blog is called Beadknitter.

She lives in the country in Northern Idaho and has moose come into her yard, doing much more damage than a mouse ever could. She takes their picture and then shoots them with a paintball to encourage them to move on.

Thank you Linda! The package made my day on a day when I really needed something nice to happen.


Last Wednesday, March 9, I heard and spotted the first Robin of the year.

It was a cold, gray, cloudy day and the poor Robin looks like it could use a warm place to take shelter.

It's warmer this week. I saw a flock of Robins fly off this morning when I went out the door. Spring will be here soon.

6 comments:

  1. I hope the good surprise evens out the bad surprise! What are you going to do with that lovely rainbow yarn?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous6:31 AM

    Oh my goodness! I never heard of mice nests in the car! If you only knew my phobia about rodents -I really freak out just thinking about them.

    Congratulations on your new pretties. Glad you had a nice surprise to offset the "problem". (See, I can hardly even say or write the R/M word - LOL).

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh so glad you won and it lifted your spirits! Love the z yarn and cannot wait to see you knit it up!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Unfortunate you were with the mouse nest, and SO fortunate with your prizes!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sandy W7:28 PM

    I can relate to your awful mouse incident. I had my third similar event this winter. Each time there was an awful noise when I turned on the heater, followed by things coming out of the vents. Mine was the hood insulation, bits of burlap and other fuzz. Each time they actually found a deceased mouse also. I push Bounce dryer sheets into the holes in the hood of my car, which was a suggestion from a guy at work. I don't know how well it works though, since I still have the problem. My mechanic said to set several traps in the garage and to put out mouse poison ONLY if we had no pets. Of course, since the first time it happened a few years ago, I always get teased when I go in for an oil change about whether or not they should do a "mouse check". The worst part is the bill for taking care of the work of a small animal. I hope you don't have more of these problems.

    Also, I love the beaded bracelet.

    ReplyDelete
  6. We had mice get into our Honda Odyssey once, and I put mouse poison in there. NEVER AGAIN. The mouse died somewhere in the ventilation system. It's 1000 times easier for me just to empty a mouse trap.

    Last year I had them get into my Honda Fit and SHRED the cabin air filter, the nasty little things.

    The other thing they claim will repel mice is menthol, and so I bought mentholated pain patches and stuck them to paper and put them by my (new) cabin air filter in my Honda Fit.

    But now I'm all paranoid, and I'm going to drop my glove box this afternoon and make sure they're not in there. PESTS.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.