by jphilo | Oct 13, 2009 | Walking Down the Gravel Road
Winter arrived abruptly this year. With the turn of the calendar page, Iowa went from a dry, warm September to a chilly, damp October. Speaking on behalf of the residents of our state, along with the flora and the fauna, I can tell you we’re still shivering with shock. Hopefully, an ambulance will arrive soon, and the EMTs will wrap us in blankets and elevate our heads until we can get to the hospital for an IV packed with mild autumn days and crisp, cool (but not frigid) nights.
This business of going straight from summer with winter has given me a wistful appreciation for fall. I’m longing for hayrides, picking out pumpkins at a pumpkin patch, the fall colors, rolling around in the crisp softness of piles of newly raked leaves. Instead, the days are full of rain and wind, the nights end with hard frosts and a skim of ice on the rain barrel.
The critters aren’t handling this abrupt winter very well either. In fact, sometime yesterday, after the farmer down the road harvested his corn, Mickey and Minnie winterized their summer cabin, battened their boat in the dock, packed their bags and headed for their favorite winter digs in my car. We’re evicting the squatters even as I speak, using as much violence as necessary, even though I sympathize with their discombobulation.
Near the garage, which the mice have dubbed “the Philo Marriott,” one rose bush refuses to bow to the inevitable. This morning, heavy frost covered it’s last, brave rose bud. I was sure it would turn black when the sun hit. But this afternoon, the flower waved its petals, bright and pink, when I went to get the mail.
Suddenly, I wanted to knit a tiny stocking cap for the courageous little thing, rig up my blow dryer as a heater. Something, anything to thank little Rose for bringing a touch of summer courage into my frosty soul.
But don’t think I’m getting to be an old softy. Mickey and Minnie are still out on their ears…unless you’d like them to live at your house.
by jphilo | Oct 5, 2009 | Church Newsletter Columns
And the rain descended, and the floods came,
and the winds blew, and burst upon that house;
and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded upon the rock.
Matthew 7:25
Lately, my world has been riddled with peskiness. First was a critter invasion that began with the mouse upstaging Pastor Tim’s sermon a couple Sundays ago and ended the following weekend when Hiram removed a mouse nest from an air vent in our car. Who knows how long it had been there, but the little devils had hung curtains and decorated their living room with Costco furniture before we threw them out.
The same weekend, the weeds in my flower gardens required gallons of my blood, sweat and tears to get things back in shape. As if that wasn’t enough, when I talked to a fellow saint in the parking lot after church the next day, I was stung by a bee.
I don’t know about you, but when I became a Christian, I signed up for things like peace, grace, salvation, sanctification and forgiveness. I did not sign up for unrelenting peskiness. But the longer I’m a Christian, the more peskiness I encounter. Sometimes it’s not just minor peskiness. Sometimes it’s major, life-threatening, tragic stuff.
Whenever my whine-o-meter kicks in – over paltry things like weeds in my flower beds, and over tragic things like a deadly accident – I remember a comment a very wise friend made about Matthew 7:25. “The verse doesn’t if a storm comes. It says storms will come. That means Christians can count on storms. And it means Christians can trust their Rock to stand firm when the storms arrive.”
Now isn’t that what Pastor Tim’s been saying every Sunday since he started preaching in Mark? Jesus didn’t promise to eliminate sickness or sadness, struggles or storms. He promised to heal our diseases and grant joy in the midst of sadness. He promised to be a Rock to stand on when we struggle, hope in the midst of storms, peace in the midst of peskiness.
Lately, I’ve been learning that when I became a Christian, I signed up for something bigger than peskiness. I signed up for Immanuel: God with me, God in the bee stings, God in the mouse nests, God in my son’s illness, rebellion and healing, God in Mom’s Alzheimer’s, a great big, faithful God in the midst of my pesky little boat.
And ever so slowly, I’m learning to appreciate what I signed up for, though I could do without a few of my traveling companions. Don’t get me wrong. I want God to stay. But the mice can jump ship, the sooner the better.
by jphilo | Sep 19, 2009 | Daily Life
Who was the Saturday morning cartoon character who coined mouse hate talk? I may not remember, but I agree whole-heartedly. I hate mieces to pieces, too. The little varmints haven’t been my favorite animal for a long, long time, not since the charm of Stuart Little and The Mouse and the Motorcycle during the infamous bedroom closet mouse invasion of 1991.
But this afternoon when Hiram found a mouse nest on the the heating element in the air vent underneath the windshield wipers, my dislike turned to loathing. The discovery and removal of the nest, along with the extraction of two dead babies stuck to the cabin air filter, cleared up the mystery of Monday’s hitch hiking mouse. It wasn’t a hitch hiker at all, it and its family were squatters.
Well, I have never fancied myself as a landlord and don’t intend to start now. The car dealership had no idea of how to keep Mickey and Minnie from rebuilding Shantytown and a quick search of the internet turned up these suspicious and/or unsatisfactory solutions:
- Mothballs
- Live traps
- Mouse traps
- Dryer sheets
- Peppermint oil on cotton balls
- Hot pepper
- Cats
Supposedly, the mice don’t like the scent of the stinky things on the list, but neither do I. In fact, I’m allergic to several of them. Even though we’ve used so many traps we should have stock in the company, the mice invasion hasn’t ended. And while we don’t own a cat, plenty of ferrel ones hang around the place, and they haven’t kept the mice at bay either.
So I’m thinking Hiram’s gonna have a whole lot of fun transforming the Corolla into a cat mobile. While he’s doing that, I’ll get Anne to whip up my slinky new Cat Woman outfit. That should scare the mieces to pieces, don’t you think?
by jphilo | Sep 15, 2009 | Out and About
Yesterday morning, I packed the car and hopped in, grateful for a road trip away from the rodent war zone. But I should have known that if a church service wasn’t safe from the little critters, nothing was sacred.
My drive from home to northwest Iowa, where I have some radio interviews and speaking engagements for the next few days, was uneventful until my brief stop at an internet coffee shop in Cherokee. Imagine my surprise when I lifted my computer case from the floor of the front passenger seat and saw a gray, hairless, and very still baby mouse on the mat.
How it got there is a mystery to me. It wasn’t there the day before yesterday when Hiram washed and vacuumed the car. It wasn’t there Monday morning when I loaded everything into it. Did it crawl out from under the mat? Or did I set the computer case on the garage floor while I packed and inadvertently pick up my defenseless and now very dead passenger.
All those thoughts raced through my head while I considered how to dispose of the body. The day was warming up, and the situation would get ripe quickly without immediate action. A long funeral service was out, since I had another thirty miles to drive and a radio interview in less than an hour. I didn’t have a matchbox with me so a fancy coffin was out, too.
So, I went into shop’s bathroom and washed my hands thoroughly. Then I ordered lunch and white while taking care of my email, all the while stockpiling napkins for a death shroud. It sounds callous and cold, but that’s life in a war zone. Meal finished, I marched to the car and photographed the body (I wanted proof to show Hiram) before swathing it in the death shroud. Then, I looked around for a cemetery.
I couldn’t find one, so I drove off with my package on the seat beside me, praying for a burial place. Too late, I spied a trash can beside a Methodist Church, (it would have been such a nice touch), and I had resigned myself to a new career as a hearse driver. But a few blocks later, glory of glories, I spied trash bins at the end of every driveway. Hallelujah – it was garbage day! I pulled up beside a particularly attractive one and unloaded my passenger with a sigh of relief.
Hopefully, I’m safe from attack for the rest of the trip, but I as soon as I drive into town tomorrow, the troop surge begins. I’m stopping at the store to lay in a supple of mouse traps. Then I’ll enlist my husband’s support, and by nightfall, we’ll have laid a mine field.
I’m taking no prisoners. This is war.
by jphilo | Mar 10, 2009 | Daily Life
Yesterday’s blog listed the top ten differences between southern California and the Midwest. Today’s list provides unwelcome proof that March in Iowa, in strong competition with November, is the state’s least favorable month.
10. As soon as the sun starts rising at an optimistic time, Daylight Savings Time begins
and pushes dawn back an hour.
9. It has rained for five days straight. SInce today is March 10, it has rained for half the
month.
8. When the rain becomes unbearable, the snow begins.
7. The gravel road and our driveway look like something the cat drug in.
6. The mice in our garage, cowed by winter’s cold and relatively inactive, have perked up
and invaded my car again. As always, they leave Hiram’s pick up alone.
5. Our daughter is “getting away” for spring break. Apparently, even Minneapolis is more
glamorous in March than is our fair state.
4. Morning walks are gloomy. (See above picture.)
3. Hiram blanches at the mention of “FAFSA.”
2. Pretty pastel Easter decorations perpetrate the cruel hoax that spring is just around the
corner.
1. Our one warm March day pushed the daffodils above ground, but they’ve been
shivering so much since the cold return, they won’t contemplate exposing themselves
further.
There, I’ve expressed my hostility told March and feel much better. In the 21 days until April begins, I’ll keep my umbrella handy, stock up on mouse traps, and knit gloves for the daffodils. I’m sure they’ll appreciate the effort.
