word!

You’d think having a farm over run with some 20 odd small felines would pretty much decimate any kind of rodent population. But after feeding said cats on a steady diet of gourmet cat food and the occasional table scrap, they become complacent. So mice do exist on our farm, but mainly in the corn room, which happens to hold the cat food as well; in other words, off limits to the cats.

Having the amazing powers of observation, my mother has on more than one occasion caught mice in a lowly plastic 5 gallon pail:

There’s really nothing all that magical about this method either, it’s just a little physics and the occasionally ill-fated movements of the mice that meet there timely demise. See the pail can really be set anywhere in the room, just so long as it’s empty and in a suicidal mouse’s path. The little critters fall in, but due to the pail slippery surface and the deep depth of the pail, it is the last mistake they will make.

Quite amusing to watch a mouse try to hop out of pail to no avail, but that means it’s dinner time for the lazy cats. There’s even a few of the idiot cats that will play with the mouse once they get it and sometimes they invariably let it go. Silly cats. Therefore, the mousers of the bunch get dinner and the other sorry suckers have to wonder where all the mice have gone they could have eaten.

So don’t be fooled by stick ’em traps, the old cheese and snap trap or other inhuman devices to rid these varmin. A plastic 5 gallon pail will do just fine!

Whew, it’s been a gruelling summer. I have attended more county fairs in the last month than my past 26 years it seems. Not that it’s a bad thing, it’s just interesting.

So far, I’ve entered the storied gates at:

Wright County
Sibley County
Carver County

and yesterday two one day!
McCleod County
Renville County

So 5 out of 83 or so, ain’t too shabby. I know I’m not a real diehard, because I’ve missed some neighboring counties that I’ve been to in the past, but didn’t get to lately. I do believe they’re all spread out enough time wise to actually visit them all.

I’ve heard rumors that the Steele County Fair in Owatonna is where it’s at in Minnesota, but alas have never gone. And some crazy counties up north are so big they have like two fair within the county. Wow!

Although I’ve been to a bunch, the bestest ones are the ones locally, where you stand a chance to meet a neigbor or various friends and family. You can’t really go wrong with a fair in Minnesota though and given all this fair activity, it’d probably only fitting to fit the Great Minnesota Get Together in there as well. Good thing I’ve been saving up for a visit there for the past few years!

Holy Bockfest Batman. It appears I have made a surfacing on another website! Yay me! Having nearly frozen to death at the 2006 Bockfest was not the only thing I accomplished that day. I also got the honor of gracing Schells’ Brewery website honoring the festivities. I really think it was the combination of having my best side facing the camera and the highly unique super, sweet Supersweet Feed Stocking Hat I donned for the occassion.

Wow, with this photo opp and appearance in state circulated newspaper, I could have this small ego-trip featuring ME go to my head.

Also available from Schell’s .Brewery

Having partaken in the great Minnesota tradition of the neigborhood consignment auction, today cannot be considered a waste. Where else can you own all the contents of a far corner of a hay rack for $1? And to think some guy had it as his life’s ambition to collect and sort all those various screws and bolts for $1 as well.

As there is always a find at auction, me and the brother didn’t come away empty-handed. But I think that’s the whole point of going…. or is it to discuss world politics with the farmer from down the way.

Who knows.

Having had the choice of spending July 1-6 curled up in the fetal position pondering the relavance of the 4th of July holiday or traveling to the state of Michigan, I boldly decided to attempt the latter. Plus getting the oppurtunity to be able to take only one vacation day off of work to get said holiday; I was stupid not to.

What’s in Michigan you might ask, I might says trees, but that would be rhetorical. Actually, there’s a girl I met some 14 years previous on a 4-H exchange trip. I’ve kept in touch and it’s always an interesting time when I go to visit.

As for the timing of this trip I decided renting a car would be the prudent thing to do, seeing as I can’t imagine how much fun it would be if my car got me stranded in like Chicago somewhere and airplane flights were mucho expensive for a last minute traveler. The prospect of driving nearly 14 hours was not exciting and in retrospect still wasn’t grand. I believe the parts that made it sucketh big time were the said time allotted and also Chicago, the drivers nightmare.

I actually didn’t do so shabby on timing. Going out I started from Gaylord at 7:00 a.m. (sharp) and arrived in Rochester’s airport a bit after 9 for car rental. But someone at Budget decided to sleep in so I didn’t get out of there until 10 am which I originally had planned on timewise. So with fuel/personal pitstops, upwards of 1 hour waiting in traffic on a Saturday night in Chicago and a time change; I made East Lansing, MI by 9:30 pm.

Coming back was pretty much same timewise. I left at 8:00 a.m. and made Chicago by noon after trying to take some back roads that looked like they would avoid Chicago. Seems they had stoplights every 2 miles maximum. That got old fast and I decided to try the parking lot… oops the interstate. Yeah, interstates in Chicago at say 1 p.m. suck. It took me upwords of an our to get out of Chicago by exiting it in the south and trying to fly across most of Illinois instead of trying for more of the gridlocked interstate that the rest of Chicago may have been. Having made time up that way afforded me the oppurtunity to visit a DQ in Decorah, IA that in managed by a family I got to know through Green Isle’s CTC. So that was worthwhile too. All said I arrived back in Gaylord at roughly midnight. So with time delayed on interstates, adding a hour change over and various fuel/personal pitstops, I also didn’t make too terrible of time. 15 going out, 16 coming back on a timeframe scheduled for 14 hrs? Not too bad in my book.

Driving that distance solo makes you wonder how truckers can do that day in and day out. Must love driving and/or have seats that are luxurious. Oof-Da!

Other than hanging out with my friend, we also got to see the Piotter Center and Piotter Highway, both roughly located in Adrian, MI (just northwest of Toledo,Ohio). Although not immediate relation, I have corresponded with family members from the area and they said their ancestors came from Pomerania, the same as my line of Piotters. Except in Michigan they don’t pronounce the name Pee Otter, but Pee- Odor.

Interesting.
Good times.
Ego-trip for sure!