As a Pagan, I love Mother Nature. I love oceans and sunsets and the sounds of birds in the morning (except when they wake me up). Of course, living out in the country, nature sometimes can be challenging, like when my garden in invaded by woodchucks. Or deer. Or rabbits. You get the picture.
And I live in Upstate NY, where nature can just be perverse. For instance, this year, the ragweed, which normally kicks my butt from early August until mid-September, STILL isn't dead. We've had a few hard frosts, and even a smidge of snow, but it hasn't been enough to kill of that darned ragweed. *shakes fist at ragweed...and leaf mold, for good measure*
There's the good, which is most of it, really, like how beautiful it is here in the fall
There's the bad, like what the salt they throw on the roads does to an otherwise perfectly good car
(Yes, that is the rust monster, eating away at my lovely Mazda Protege. Sigh. A big chunk of the underneath of the door just fell off the other day.)
And then there is the UGLY, like the sight that greeted me when I went through the mudroom on my way out to work first thing this morning
Those ugly things are all that remained of about 2/3rds of the beautiful spaghetti squashes I grew (slaved over!) this summer in my garden. I was planning to eat them most of the winter, but clearly, something beat me to it. I've been known to get mice in the mudroom (since the cats aren't allowed in there), but this was no mouse.Unless it was on steroids, and brought 25 of its best friends. I'm guessing a squirrel got in there somehow, although I haven't been able to figure out where the hole in the wall is. I sure as heck found the holes in the squash, though! Sadly, this is just the tip of the iceberg...there were probably 20+ squashes and I have 6 left.
The critter, whatever it was, also gnawed a hole in my bags of pellets for the pellet stove, even though they aren't edible.
Nature. Yay.
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I thought more places were using something other than salt just because of that damage. Guess I was wrong. That's too bad about your car.
ReplyDeleteAnd how did the little rat-bastard squirrel get in and out of your mudroom? It must be Houdini in a vastly different incarnation. Sorry about your wonderful squashes.
Sometimes it's difficult to be a pagan, especially when you want to pull out a rifle and kill something. :)
LOL. I originally thought about calling this post "Maw, git me my gun."
DeleteI love mother nature too. And yet ... ;-)
ReplyDeleteI am very sad about your spaghetti squashes! I tried to grow some this summer, but it was a complete failure. I hear squashes and pumpkins like to grown on piles of horse manure though, and manure piles I have, so I'm optimistic for next year.
I had a volunteer squash-y something grow in my compost pile one year, but it wasn't anything edible. But yes, squash is a heavy feeder, so it loves manure. It was a strange year for the garden--some things did really well, and some not at all.
DeleteOh, no!! Couldn't it have eaten just one its entirety? Bad squirrel!
ReplyDeleteApparently, no... Grrrr.
DeleteI do so sympathise.
ReplyDeleteI have a lovely old farmhouse in the Scottish Highlands and by dint of getting rid of the chickens, we got rid of the rats, and now the mice have moved in - into the walls! I can hear them running around at night after we go to bed. Creepy!
I have five cats and still have mice in the ceiling and the walls. Sometimes they are so loud, it sounds like they are holding drag races. Of course, every once in a while, one of them makes the mistake of coming out of the walls...it does not go well for them. See five cats, above :-)
DeleteYep, that's how they sound. Very silly of them, to tangle with your cats, mind you I guess none of them make it back alive to warn the others.
DeleteWe inherited 2 cats with the house, and they just about put up with our pack of dogs until we were adopted by a young collie.
They now live down the road with friends!
Smart cats :-)
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