A Parlour for a Plague

whoa! looks great

Crazy!

Joe, Glad to be an inspiration, but where's the apple sauce.

Next time maybe.

The Baltimore Orioles arrived maybe ten days ago. In previous years, sightings were, not rare, but fleeting. 2, 3 weeks and they were mostly gone. But this year, they are everywhere, and yesterday one of them took a liking to my front windows. All day long, scrabbling, tapping and singing. Attracted to its own reflection? Randy?

It was back this morning at 5:30.

We've gone from "Oh look!! An Oriole!" to "Fukc off bird" in 24 hours.

Oh god that looks good!

Allowed myself some potato last week. They’re grown on our farm and taste amazing.

This time five years ago we were in Noo Yawk.

Had lunch with Boida, jes, region, tsar, Thomas (?), semi otterly.

You were also in New Mexico. I know cuz I seen you.

That latke looks amazing. Mr Fixit is hankering now....

That was 10 years ago!

We must be having fun, huh?

Well, it’s 3.24 am and, after coming in all night from time to tell me she was on the hunt....causing me to have almost no sleep....Viola finally arrived in the bedroom singing the successful mouse hunt song of her people.

After some leaps and flurries of triumph, she hopped into bed for cuddles for being such a good cat, which she duly received.

Then she trotted off to the kitchen, saying there were More Mice to come.

I thought I’d look for the little mouse body for disposal since she was back on patrol.

It was easy to find.

It was lying right next to me in bed.

Good morning all. I hope your sleep was a tad more peaceful.

Oh. She’s just come back for her mouse. Clearly still wanted to play with it.

Bad Mother.

Your cat really adores you. Sharing the mousie bits is high honor in Mouseterian.

I am grateful that she always leaves me a whole, unmarked mouse. Just generally not in the bed.

I have been left multiple mice and rats, whole or disturbingly NOT whole, by my Abyssinian, Jake, in years gone by.

Rat drumsticks in the sofa, tails everywhere, rat cores on the floors.

Mouse (our new rescue kitty) is a young cat that was kept by some "cat lady" and she is about 4 months old and is already a great hunter/gatherer. Actually she is a legendary great hunter but not so much gatherer. She will catch and torture the mice to death and then stash em for later.
This is kinda emabarrasing but wtf.

About 3 weeks ago I was off air a couple days because of new lambs so Mrs F would feed the cat and the dog and I would take care of the sheep, chickens and donkeys(The steers only eat pasture). In that time Mouse must have whacked a mouse and stuffed it in a big downstairs fireplace (the room its in used to be a kitchen and settle room with a small tavern and Post office with shelving ). We converted it to a larger settle and rigged it for watching TV and listening to music using the shelving . Some time later i noticed a kinda garlicky smell like the mercaptan odor they inject into natural gs and propane so you can smell any leaks.
I got a bit scared that we had a gas leak so I called our propane service and they dispatched their EGLD squad (Emergency Gas Leak Detection squad).

These guys are dispatched from way down the "Eastern Shore" in town named Chestertown Md. when they got here they asked us to leave the houe as they suited up and started sniffing with their equipment AND !!! AND a HOUND DOG. THE Dog's named RALPH. NIce dog, really friendly, but all of a sudden as Im getting some stuff to tke out to the camper RALPH was all business (I guess he strted smelling stuff too and the gas guys said" RALPH's on alert"

Ralph just passed by me and the guys had their portable MS unit sniffing away. ralph headed over to the fireplace and sat doown and started whining. The guys came over and asked me whether the gas lines pass by the fireplace. "I certainly hope not" that would appear to be relly dumb and since it ws your guys who did the installation I assumed they were coming into the building with a slant drill pipeline.
Anyway, long story, too much inormation .
The smell was this ded mouse. Probably laying there a few days after the cat had bitten its head off .
The EGLD squad began down-robing , and were left wearing only street clothes, gloves and their corona masks and Ralph had a smell bandana and he looked a bit annoyed with stupid humans.

They shoveled the mouse up and asked to keep it for Ralph's advanced training. I could tell that we would be the subject of some post prandial refreshment "technical discussions". WTF it smelled like gas to me..
"Whats the difference between a mouse and a mercaptan?"
Last Fri I got a statement (It was covered by our heater/AC/ propane/ "Gold Plan"). But the letter (in the form of a report) stated that the customer was unable to distinguish the odor differences between the mercaptan used by the gs company and a dead rodent;s smell which is an amine called "cadaverine"

The chimney guys are gonna come next week to do all the chimneys and clean up the stoves and fireplaces .

Goddam cat

I no longer have cats because I can't keep them indoors and they get me in trouble if roaming free.

I don't keep cats, because as ever'body knows, even if they won't admit it, CATS IS THE SPAWN OF SATAN!

me a few hours ago

seriously

do you have to be so fín loud?

Ha! You still haven't seen the light, have you, Boyo??

Spose the moral of the shaggy story is get an electronic gas leak detector dog.