The Minnesota Farm Woman

The mouse is in the breezeway, which is technically not in the house. The connecting door between the two stays closed, unless I am carrying groceries/laundry/etc. or I forget to close it. The old breezeway has shifted, leaving a gap between the back door and the threshold large enough for Mrs. Mouse and her large extended family to move in….and out….and in again every night. At least that’s how I picture it in my mind when there is the tiniest noise out there. I see the evidence of their family reunions every morning. It needs more than a simple repair, and I am somewhere around the third from the bottom on my carpenter’s have-to-do-before-winter-but-maybe-next-spring list. We set a mousetrap, for whatever good that does. Perhaps I should say I set the trap, since I got tired of reminding HIM to set it every night. There’s another problem. HE sleeps later than I do every morning, which means that I have to check the trap. This morning, I picked up Barney the Chihuahua to save his nose in case there was no mouse in the trap and checked where I had put it last. No trap. I checked behind the dryer, under the table, and inside a rolled-up rug. No trap, no mouse. That meant that there was probably a live mouse in a trap somewhere. Ick. Since I had to leave for church and HE was still asleep, I quickly scrawled a note and left it on the counter: “I set the trap but it wasn’t there when I checked. Eek!” By the time I got home, the problem was taken care of. My hero. I am being not the least sarcastic here, unlike my usual style of writing. I was planning on telling you about the 27 golf shirts in HIS closet, but will keep that story for another time. Happy anniversary to my mousetrap-finding hero who literally keeps the home fires burning because I can’t start a decent fire. Thank you for loading the boat, getting the bait, and filling the gas tank so all I have to do is step in and fish. Thank you for wiring the chicken coop so I wouldn’t have to go out there in the dark and get eaten by wolves or coyotes. Thank you for snow-blowing a path through the thigh-high drifts so I can get to my girls in the winter. Thank you for feeding them when I have a late meeting because you love me more than you hate chickens. Thank you for tilling my garden that I let go to weeds every year. Thank you for not saying “I told you so” about the turkey poop in the back yard. Although I would really like a few goats to add to our menagerie, I know you really don’t want them. So on this, our 37th anniversary, I just wanted to tell you that I love you more than I love goats, however cute and cuddly they may be.