Today...

I decided to venture into town with the men. To get out for a bit. To see other humans...

Of course it was to be a short trip, with just a few errands to be ran. I had planned on sitting all the errands out, except for the grocery store. I can't walk far, so I wanted to make it count. The first thing we noticed was that we had a flat tire. We have 6 tires on the truck and of course as usual it was an inner dual that went flat, the most complicated to get at. So the first place we ended up was at our local mechanics so they could help fix it.

That took an hour. While we were there, and I was sitting in the truck, Kevin came along to get something out of the glove box. And then we saw this...



Yes, that's a giant mouse nest. Yes they ate through most of our saved papers and also through our truck manual. They decided against eating up the dogs paperwork, and for that I'm grateful. Everything in there smells like mouse pee and it was not fun to clean up.

We have had mice problems in our truck forever. You can't have a vehicle out here without mice getting in. One year (and I swear this is true, you can call our mechanic) we were getting the truck repaired to go to Alaska and we were picking it up once the work was done and standing around at the shop talking to our mechanic, his wife, his kids (who also work there) and our farmhand Jim who had driven us into town to pick up our truck, in his car... we were talking about the mouse who lived in the truck. And no word of a lie, while we were talking about it, the mouse jumped out of the truck in front of ALL of us, ran across the mechanics yard, which was full of other vehicles.. and jumped straight into Jim's car! And Jim was actually running towards his car as if somehow he could stop this tiny mouse from jumping in.

No way.

One year in Whitehorse in the Yukon we were getting the truck looked at because we had been having a problem on the road. The guys opened the hood in the shop and a mouse climbed out, looked at them, and took off.

In other words... It's a long standing issue.

This one, really pushed his luck. I did manage to find my turtle bracelet in the glove box mess, and it's been missing for years... so all was not lost.

Anyway, getting the tire fixed left us in a rush to get our errands done. I did indeed get into the grocery store and I stocked up on all the goodies I wanted... spicy mortadella, cheese, bread...  It wore me out. I was leaning on boxes at the checkout debating sitting on the floor because I couldn't stand up any longer. Jim suggested I sit on a pile of red salt blocks they had against the wall. I'm sure it would have left an interesting mark on me if I had.. But I made it out, and we finished our errands.

When we got home I really wanted to go out to the turtle pond (which is not far from the house) to get a picture of it. It was so pretty with all the soft maples turning color - so I decided to chance it and stay up just a little bit longer.



And so Jim and I went out to the pond... and I drove the Mule for the first time in 2 1/2 months... Man did that ever feel good.



The Shaggy manes were out too! They come and go so fast, you are lucky to catch them.



This little pond is always pretty this time of year...



It greets us whenever we come or go from the farm...




and its always full of turtles and Wood ducks. I realized with the little good energy I have right now, it's not worth wasting by going to town. I don't want to see other humans, I want to see my forest. My goats. That teeny bit of energy that belongs to me has many better things to get depleted on right now.

Many more things that might deplete my energy but will feed my spirit, and my heart.




Autumn has arrived. And it's heavenly.



On the way home I noticed these two by the house in the woods. A nice doe and a spike buck. I was so glad to see them.



And I even got to say hi to some of the critters! Jackson was hoping I'd have treats though, so that was a let down.

Then I went back to bed where I am now. My body isn't thrilled with me, but the pain is not bad compared to my "normal" pain. And I'm a good kind of tired and the happy kind.

The past few days I have not left bed and I have not even looked at my computer. I have been really busy since I got this package in the mail...



My sweet friend in B.C. sent me my second box full of yarn from her shop (her shop is her yarn room in her house ;) she knew I had been down because I couldn't out to the craft store like I had hoped, so she saw to it that I wouldn't be needing to go to one for a while!



So I've been knitting from morning until night. I'm not kidding either. I've been knitting so much, I'm knitting in my sleep and having nightmares about dropped stitches. I am producing scarves like a madwoman right now. But it's keep my hands busy and keeping me out of trouble, which is a good thing!