December 2021

 

As the virus war rages on outside, we are safely ensconced in our super secret undisclosed virus free location. Whew! That description is getting longer and longer. I may have to shorten it to SSUVFL. 

I should add that there is another war going on around us. Mouse-agedon continues. In July I started a mouse battle in our campers. If you have forgotten about it you can read the blog here.Mouse-agedon . So this fall I had noticed some signs of mice around the barn and cabin. At least they are outside, but I am thinking that they may want to move inside at some point. So I started by putting out 2 traps. One out front and one in the back. I would check the traps every morning and sure enough, I would get one or at least see that they stole the peanut butter.

So eventually I started increassing the number of traps around the barn to where I am putting out 6 traps a night now. In the morning I will run my trap line and then report to Lisa the results, which go something like this on any typical day.  6 traps out, 2 dead mice, 3 traps where robbed and 1 sprung.

For a body count since the battle started I am up to 41 mice now. I continue to put out traps until the day that none of the traps has been touched. At that point I will just scale back the operation. Putting my military skills to good use. How so? You ask. Well I have identified the enemy of unknown strength, devised a battle plan and implemented it and brought the war to them. John Wayne would be proud.

Since I got the "All clear" from the Mayo clinic to start work on the cabin again, some project have been asccomplished. 

First on the "Honey do" list was the mantle over the wood stove. It looked too small for the area. So I removed it. Lisa took an old board we had laying around and distressed it some more and stained it. That is what we used for our new mantle.

It looks a lot better and fills that corner.

All decked out for the holidays.

Lisa liked the way that turned out so we got another board that was on the rough side. We cut it and Lisa stained it and now she has a shelf in her kitchen.

We also came up with a plan to finish our window trim. We have vinyl windows that came with the building. Lisa spray foamed around them last year. 

Notice that there are 2 gaps there. I needed to build that up with something. So I decided that a 4X8 sheat of 1/4 inch plywood would be perfect. I cut it into 6 inch strips to use as a filler.

Of course they are cut to size. This is just an example of the process. Then came the 1X8 board to finish the inside. Again cut to the precise size.

Once cut, Lisa stained them all. 

Not bad for a DIYer.

On a more personnal note now. As we grow up, memories of things in our child hood get suppressed at times. I mean a young mind is absorbing so much info on life that things get burried. But eventually somethings will pop up out of the blue and that happened twice last week for me. Lisa and I were driving in town when somoeone pulled out in front of us and randomly I said, "What a dinkh**d". Lisa looked at me with a look of shock on here face and then started laughing which started me laughing.

Once the laughter subsided, she asked where that came from. Thinking about it we remember my mother using that word on us as kids when we were acting up. She would always be calling us kids "dinks" when we were doing stupid things. It's just a funny word when you think about which we did causing more laughter to ensue.

Another word that popped up in our repertoire was when I was regailing Lisa with how much joy Chinese food adds to my life. To which she said that if she eats Chinese again she would throw-up. I said something like this, "I can't help it that you don't like Moo Goo Gui Pan as much as me". Moo Goo Gui Pan? Again bringing much laughter amongst us. Another funny word that made us laugh and it also came from my mother. That was her favorite dish. Speaking of funny Chinese dishes, Jim's favorite dish is Sum yung boi. 

Christmas is approaching fast, so we would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and also a Happy New Year.

Stay safe and stay warm!