Something Different

I do try not to intentionally frighten the wild things who share Farview; it doesn't seem hospitable.  However, I feel there should be some intimidation if from nothing but size.  It didn't seem right to have to tell those deer to go home.  Yesterday the mice proved to me that I have no fear factor at all.  It's a bit of a blow to the ego.  There was a mouse in the feed bucket when I started chores in the barn.  Instead of racing around and trying to hide in the scoop cup or leaping over the edge, it waited calmly for me to pick it up and lift it out.  Hmmm.  Providing that service was not in my job description.  Later, while milking and watching six or eight of the little critters munching at their breakfast bar on the floor, I caught sight of movement and was astounded to see that a mouse was joining me on the stand within inches of where I sat.  It wasn't like I was sitting still; I was working and milk was zinging into the bucket.  I even spoke to Mickey aloud and got no reaction.  So?  Are these mice on 'ludes?

It was sunny but really cold yesterday (and twenty-four degrees this morning).   Deadheading some of the marjoram plants in the herb garden was as much outside work as I wanted to do after barn duties.  Marjoram sends up tall stalks with lovely purple flowers, but when they die off those stalks turn brown and straggly.  It's a yearly chore to break them at ground level and neaten up the yard.  The house was still tidy from the day before.  Not like there weren't things I could and should do inside; I just didn't want to.  Hungry for vegetables but not willing to go grocery shopping, I decided to take myself out for a Chinese lunch up in Pleasant Valley, something I rarely to never do.  It was just something different. Imagine my surprise when I walked out and found the air filling with what we call "popcorn" snow.  Not flakes at all, it looks and feels like little pellets of Styrofoam floating around.  There were only a few clouds in the sky, but it evidently was cold enough up there and they held enough moisture to condense into snow.  It didn't last long then, but on my way home I saw small drifts in shady places on the side of the road, and more swirled around me briefly again as I walked from the truck to the house.  And here I'd been saying we weren't going to get any.

It was a nice "something different" kind of day.