The Minnesota Farm Woman

It all started with one little mouse. OK, three little mice. Living in the country in an older house with cold weather on the way means that mice will find their way inside no matter what we do. As a City Woman, I used to be a little more squeamish about small creatures and creepy crawly things, but HE is not always here to take care of things like this, and I don’t like leaving the icky little things in the trap, so I put on plastic gloves, pick up the trap, and trying not to look, carry it outside at arm’s length and toss it outside in the tall grass behind the septic tank.  I’m digressing, though, so back to the story.  Company was coming, and the mouse family had to pick that moment to move in.  With the mice resting in peace in mouse heaven, or wherever small creatures and creepy crawly things go, I thought I would get down to things at hand:  Cleaning.  Since we have had such a good gardening year and much of my spare time was spent harvesting, canning, and freezing, the house was decidedly in need of a good scrubbing.  I always seem to have some kind of drama in my life, though.  Call it drama, craziness, or unfortunate events, I seem to get more than my share of them.  After the mouse incident, the furnace broke.  Two days before the arrival of a houseful of company in northern Minnesota, and we have no furnace and won’t have one until next week.  The furnace was the easiest of the events, however. The bathroom toilet stopped up.  Barney had an “accident” on the carpet in the guest room which was more like an “on purpose”.  Next, as I was giving my hardwood floors a final sweep and mop, the flies started gathering around my front door. Dozens and dozens of them, many  finding their way inside to buzz around my windows and lights, falling on my clean floors seemingly dead but coming back to life when I tried to sweep them into the dustpan.  Mice?  Flies? Am I living in a Poltergeist movie or something?  Are swarms of locusts coming next?  The good news about my family, though, is that they are decidedly and most thankfully NOT dramatic. We not only love each other, we actually like each other, too. They cheerfully kept up with piles of dishes. They swatted flies and swept the floor.  They didn’t complain, even when the toilet in the guest bathroom started leaking from around the bottom.  The conversation and laughter flowed, and so did the wine. The weather gods cooperated fully, so nobody froze. The harvest moon was the prettiest of the entire year.  The owls were hooting in the moonlight, hopefully catching and eating lots of mice for dinner.   Oh, by the way…..keep the part about the mice just between us, would you please?  I think there would have been less cheerfulness and more drama had they known about them.