Story of the Day 9/ 11/ 2014

Today's story is actually continuation of yesterday's story, which is how much of life goes.

I was sitting in the dining room, drawing.
I know, most people do not draw in their dining rom.
I do because I have a studio, complete with a drawing/drafting table, and a special chair to sit in when I use the table.
This sounds wonderful, but it isn't.
Because the chair is broken.
Broken as in, if you sit in it, you end up on the floor.
So, instead of getting the chair fixed, or buying new one,
I draw in the dining room.

To get back to where I started this story, I was sitting in the dining room, drawing, and I heard a commotion.

From the squirrels.

The same squirrels I keep regularly fed with squirrel crackers.
They can get noisy, sometimes. They will fight one another- sometimes for a cracker, and sometimes just because .
And they will sometimes make some vocal or other noises because I have not fed them, recently, or enough.
But this was more noise, much more noise than I had heard them make, previously.

I got up and went to the patio door.
I looked , and looked.
No squirrell in sight.

I heard it , again.

My ability to locate where a sound is coming from is poor , that is because I have a good ear and a bad ear.
The good ear can hear most conversational speech, as long as you do not try to speak softly.
My bad ear can hear you, if you are really loud or if I happen to be wearing my hearing aid.
Because my two ears do not work together, locating sound is...hard.
But I did.
And I was surprised.
The squirrel making the racket was trapped.

In the catch and release trap I had set for the chipmunks.

I went and got a heavily coated pair of gardening gloves, the kind I wear to trim rose bushes,
and a heavy pair of shoes,
and a broken solar light.
Well, the light is broken, but the post that it sat on and that anchored it to the ground was intact.

And I went out on the patio and put my shoe on top of the trap,
and used the solar light post to gently prod Mr. Squirrel in the butt,
so he would move to the back of the trap; and then I used the same post to open the door.

I have never seen a squirrel move that fast- not even when fighting another squirrel.
The poor guy was out of the trap and across the yard and up a tree as fast as...a very fast squirrel can go.

In all the time I've had those traps and have been setting them, which is all of this summer,
I had never before caught a squirrel in one of them.
I've caught 8 chipmunks, most of which I relocated to a nearby park;
and one that went to a farther park, though, because I had to go the other direction, that day.
And I trapped a baby bunny, who, unlike this squirrel seemed rather happy in the trap .
So happy that after leaving the door open for half an hour, he was still in it.
I finally bribed him out with a fresh strawberry and a fresh cherry.

But, then again, I have never before used squirrel food to bait the trap.

Another proof, for my children, that's what I bought at the grocery store.

Story of the Day 9/ 10/ 2014

You might not realize this, but the bag in the above picture is a bag of squirrel food.

I am not sure what planet my children grew up on...well, perhaps it was simply an omission in their education, but they didn't realize this very obvious fact.

I said to my son, " You see, cat food is for cats,
and dog treats are for dogs.
Since the store didn't' have separately labelled squirrel crackers,
I figured that the squirrels were supposed to be fed the generic 'animal' crackers."

My son thought moment, then agreed.

So did the squirrels.
They, in fact, are wild about the squirrel food and come back over and over, all day long.

Unfortunatley, because this is generic "animal" food, the chipmunks also seem to like it.
These are the same chipmunks that we have spent all summer trying to induce to enter the "catch and release" traps that I have
been generously baiting with birdseed and nuts.
But the chipmunks, apparently, like the squirrel food better.
They scurry around the squirrels, grabbing up the smaller pieces.
And looking at us, through the window.
I could swear that I heard one of them quietly saying , "Nah nah nah nah nah!"

So I've decided to bait the chipmunk catch and release traps with the squirrel food.

Story of The Day 7/ 30/ 2014

I have taken the girls to Kohl's. We have to buy bed pillows and, as always, see if there are any cool t-shirts.

I should say, I need to buy the bed pillows, and Sarah and Haley came for the t-shirst.

As we walk past a display for some bedding, a mother is chatting with her son who is perhaps 9 or 10, while a younger boy, perhaps 5 or 6 stares at us.
As we walk past, and I am almost close enough to the younger boy to bump him, (not totally my fault, there is a hefty display in the aisle) he whispers to his mother, "They are talking with their hands!"

That did not surprise me , we were - or, at least, the girls were.
And I could see how a youngster might think he should whisper that information,
even if his ability to whisper quietly isn't very well developed, yet.

But his next line, also spoken in a very loud whisper, makes me wonder,
He says, " They can't hear!"

So, kid, why are you whispering?

Story of the Day 7/ 8/ 2014

My "saying of the day", which came to me at 3:47 AM:

The problem with "grin and bear it" is that it is murder on my TMJ.

Story of the Day 7/ 17/ 2014

My son, Aaron, the deaf one who drank a lot of water to make sure he would wake up,
since the Holiday Inn didn't have a phone signaler/flasher for a wake up call,
nor did they have an alarm clock a deaf person could use,
arrived home and he, his sister, Sarah and Haley went down to Holliday Park to shoot several scenes for a video they are making.

I drove them over and left them there.
Except that I didn't,
because after walking them down a slope to a grassy area, Aaron pulled the camera from the camera bag
and realized he had left the camera's battery back at the house.

And he wasn't sure where.

So, Aaron and I trudged back up the slope and drove home.
Luckily, he found it relatively quickly and I dropped him back at the park.

After the second trip to the park, I arrived home in plenty of time to drive my father-in-law ,
who has been living with us, to the senior citizen lunch at the Jewish Community Center.
Then I washed about 347 dishes ( many left from making props) and waited.

And waited.

At around 2:45 PM, I got a text from Sarah.
They are packing up and I should come get them.
Oh, And Aaron's phone is dead.

It went into the water.
With Aaron.
Apparently, Aaron had a little mishap when they were filming and fell into the river.

Twice.