February 7: A Mouse in a Bucket

I woke up to a strange drumming. Was the dog's tail hitting the door?

No. Phil had brought in a few buckets of firewood, and left the mostly empty buckets at the edge of the island, waiting to bring more wood down.

Staring up at me from on the collection of bits of bark was a large mouse.

From the evidence of droppings all over my counters, the mouse had not been trapped in the bucket all night.

EWWW!

How did the mouse come in? Was it a stowaway in the buckets of firewood? When Phil went down into the crawlspace to do some plumbing and left the hatch open, did the mouse find its way up? Did it hitch a ride on the box of flooring?

None of these scenarios seem plausible, even as the idea that the mouse somehow tried to make a flying leap off the island and, oops, ended up in the bucket doesn't seem plausible.

In any case, I was glad to put the bucket outside. Phil eventually called Shadow to come and get the mouse. I know Shadow played with it, but last I saw, the mouse was not yet dead. Perhaps it will return at some point. I hope not.

The boys and I finished a third of the school schedule today. That's not as far as I might wish, but considering that I read aloud history, read-alouds, and most of the readers as well (Abraham listens in and doesn't want to miss anything), I don't think we're doing too badly. Not to mention having a baby and moving since the school year began.

I took my first shower under the new showerhead.

And Phil spent the day in general clean up. We have one area that has been dedicated to construction materials, from plumbing bits to waterproofing and the shop vac. As the months have passed, his boxes of "roofing" or "plumbing" or "electrical" have gotten mixed, or strewn about. He spent the day sorting, in the never ending fight against the second law of thermodynamics.