Seriously...

Six, count them (Robin, Stella, Charlotte, Miss Bea, Smoochie, Jack), SIX terriers and not a one of them could catch this little imp hiding under the washer or dryer.



 And lets not forget the one house cat. Sheesh, it took me, worlds dinkiest Hav-A-Hart trap and some peanut butter to do the job. It was a catch and release of course. Little Minnie or Mickey went into the Peromyscus relocation program and ended up on a woodsy rock outcropping about 75 yards from the house. I am sure the local mouse population is being regaled with stories about the horde of lazy critters. Maybe the mouse version of a big fish story?

The terriers are adept at finding the errant scorpion though. He was not so lucky. Enough said.

Now I know you are all probably impressed with how magnanimous I am, not to mention sheer bravery, but I need to come clean. In the face of another Southern Oregon summer, (which by the way, finally arrived), I am a griping, grouchy wimp. I just can't stand high heat and I know that many of you, in most parts of the country, are experiencing MUCH worse than we have on average up here in the Cascade-Siskiyou Mountain range.  Kudos to you, and to all those fire fighters on the front lines in Colorado too! Anyway, I cried "Uncle"( a few other things too), and broke down and bought a cheap small window air conditioner for the bedroom. $99.00 between me and a good nights sleep. It was a no brainer. DH wisely installed it with very little comment, but I did notice he brought in the ice scraper from his truck. If only it could get the room cold enough for frost on the windows.....

In general farm news, Bob got an oil change. It was a real pain locating the proper oil filter. He's about 21 years old and the parts books no longer cross reference his old part number, so we and by "we" I mean Gene, had to take out the old filter, go to town and get a new one. That current part number is written on the front of the manual we have for him. I was a little insulted when one of the tractor parts places asked if he was a mower when I gave them his model number. Bob is NOT a big lawn mower, he's a small tractor, complete with front end loader and could take other normal tractor attachments if we wanted. He may be small, but he is mighty and I told them so.

Sewing has been steady but slow. Monday I cut out 4 summer blouse patterns. There is something perverse about spending all morning vacuuming and cleaning, only to make a mess cutting up fabrics an hour after I'm done, but that's what happens.  I made up a repeat of Burda pattern 7398.





 I had bought this pattern and some fabric I liked when I was in MA and gave my folks sewing machine a good cleaning and little workout on it while there. I liked version one a lot. It took a while constructing pockets on this second version. I just love the practicality and fun that adding a pocket offers so when I saw a little 5" zipper at the "craft store masquerading as a fabric store", I had to give it a whirl.



 This shirt got a little breast pocket too because I loved being able to use the interesting selvage edge from some left over grey Swiss Dot fabric.

Weaving has been steady but slow too. The end of the Murphy warp is in sight.

Riding has been out of the question. Along with the heat these last few days, we have stayed pretty humid for us, over 50% most evenings and overnight, dropping to around 30% during the day.  The boys did get out for a day of grazing rotation, the grass is drying up quickly, so it was probably one of their last. I may hand walk them all over to one area
and keep watch since it is nearer the road than I would like. Basically, we're hitting the dog days of summer. Fire danger is rising to "High" today, we're watching the skies for thunder storms and hoping all the visitors to our lovely mountain are as careful as we are during fire season.

Parting shot: Rodent specialists? I think not!