Farm Life is Fun!

I woke up yesterday morning to a weird chewing sound. Anyone who has ever lived in an old farmhouse knows there are any number of critters that could be making this noise, but let me tell you…I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt…this wasn’t your everyday little ol’ field mouse. This sucker sounded like maybe a beaver commenced to making the house his new home.

I gingerly pulled back the curtains that serve as the “door” between the bedroom and the living room…afraid of what I might spook in the process. I didn’t see anything, but after a moment, the chewing commenced again. I listened carefully and from what I could tell, it was coming from the area of the front door.

Not wanting to scare the thing away before I had a chance to identify it, I tiptoed carefully across the living room and carefully pulled the curtain on the door back ever so slowly. There, in all his glory, was a fat grey squirrel doing his best to eat the house! I smacked my hand hard on the wall on the other side of his feast and he jumped three feet in the air…his little legs pumping before he ever hit the ground.

I opened the door with some trepidation. I mean…was he just standing off to the side waiting for me to come out in the open before he pounced? Or did I really scare him away? Did he have friends out there ready to take me on? I wouldn’t put it past the little beasties! But, alas…the critter was gone and I had a chance to look at the damage. Let’s just say this little fellow has been at this for a while. There was a three to four inch semicircular hole in the outer level of wood with distinct teeth marks from the time spent trying to…what? Get in the house? I can’t imagine why he would want to chew through the side of the house when there are easily a dozen places where he could more easily gain access. Wear down his teeth? Squirrels, like beavers, have teeth that continually grow and they need to be worn down with chewing. I imagine that’s where this was going, but why the house of all things? There’s a million trees…standing and fallen…where he could go. There are outbuildings…the old barn…heck, he could have gone to Chicago for that matter. Why did he want to chew that place in particular? We’ll never know because I scared him off before I had the chance to ask!

I sat down with my trusty iPhone and searched the internet for “How to keep a squirrel from eating your house.” It popped up before I had the chance to finish asking, meaning…I’m not the first person to ask this question. Oddly reassuring. It said you could pour hot sauce on the spot, but the poor little squirrel might get it in his little eyes which could lead to blindness and since I cannot have a blind squirrel running into things on the farm, I elected for option #2…mothballs.

Now, did I have mothballs? Well, in all honesty, I thought I had seen some down in the basement but no…it was Epsom salts. Not a good alternative, unfortunately. I needed some light bulbs for the kitchen fixture anyway as they were burned out. And I was out of paper towels. So, I grabbed my purse and keys and headed back over to the Dollar General where I had visited the day before.

I searched up and down the aisles and finally asked a clerk if they had mothballs. She was good…she told me off the top of her head where they were…exactly. After paying for my purchases, I headed back home with my bright yellow sack to banish the tree rat! I needed a mesh sack and didn’t have one, so I cut the scrubby netting off the back of a dish cloth and that worked nicely. I took a length of my yarn and tied up a few mothballs in my makeshift sack and hung it over the place where Rocky Squirrel had been recently noshing. We’ll see next time if it worked!

In the meantime, we had several snow squalls come blowing through. As is typical this time of year, we saw hail, sleet, graupel, snow, rain and sunshine all in the span of fifteen minutes. It was epic! I changed the light bulbs, loaded up the truck, and headed home. The Piggly Wiggly was PACKED at 3:30. What on earth do people need to buy at 3:30 on a Friday afternoon…the line on both registers was six deep! *gasp*

With the fixin’s for a big ol’ pot spaghetti in hand, I headed on home to greet my sweetheart. Absence indeed does make the heart grow fonder and we are always tickled to death to see each other after a couple of days. After dinner, I finished the hat I started knitting Wednesday. It was one heck of an April Fool’s Day!!!