I Love To Go A Gardening
Growing Our Life in Northern Michigan
Miss Meadows
EJ arrived home safely from his hunting trip. I’m glad he gets to enjoy hunting with his friend, but I’m always glad when he gets home. The house feels empty without him.
Today was an extremely busy day.
I got up at the usual Monday morning time, fed Danny and the cats, took care of the ducks and chickens, took my shower, and got dressed. As I was coming out of the bedroom, I saw a deer up near the deck. We both froze. After a couple of minutes, the deer wandered off. I think it was checking out the bird feeders. It sure didn’t take long for word to get out among the forest critters that the feeders are out.
After breakfast, we drove off for our eye appointments. I got a notice about a month ago that it was time for my annual eye exam but with JJ driving our second vehicle to work and school, I am usually without a vehicle to drive. Usually I just wait until the weekend when EJ and I can enjoy doing errands together but the eye doctor is closed on the weekend. I could have dropped off/picked up EJ from work so I could use the suburban, but that’s a lot of driving and I don’t feel comfortable with driving in (potentially) bad winter weather. Another problem was that we needed to use our vision debit card before the end of the year or we lose all the money EJ had paid into the card during the year. Since EJ also needed to have an eye appointment, I simply made us appointments on the same day and he took the day off from work. Problem solved. We have told JJ that he needs to start saving for his own vehicle so we don’t have these transportation problems.
Our appointments went well. We both have only a little change in our vision. We both are getting new eye glasses. We were able to use our health/vision debit cards to pay for it, so it didn’t cost us anything out-of-pocket. The only problem with the visit to the eye doctor was that they put drops in our eyes, which made the world too bright and strained our eyes. But we managed.
After our eye exams, we stopped at the Habitat for Humanity Resale Shop because EJ wanted to check it out. We weren’t planning to buy anything but then I found a beautiful small cabinet for only $15. I think its original purpose was to hold the bathroom sink but I thought it would be perfect to use as our coffee cabinet–with the coffee machines on top and the coffee supplies inside. EJ agreed. It’s much better than the tv tray we had been using. The cabinet didn’t have a sink or a counter on top, but EJ made a temporary counter and he will make a more permanent one later.
We were going to stop at a local farm store located not far from the resale shop to buy bales of straw and some wild bird seed, but we had several other stops to make and we didn’t think it would all fit. So we decided not to stop at this store today.
Next, we stopped to eat at Culvers for a late lunch. We had left home at about 8:30 a.m., and it was 1 p.m. when we stopped at Culvers. We were very hungry.
Our fourth stop was at Goodwill. I found a few sweatshirts, EJ found a radio, and we both found some books. We love thrift shops.
After Goodwill we stopped at Meijers, which is a regional store that is sort of like Wal-mart. EJ bought socks and stuff, and then we went shopping for groceries–mostly items for our Thanksgiving meal on Thursday. We also bought wild bird seed.
We had planned to stop at TSC for poultry feed and canned cat food, but we were really tired and the suburban was filled with the cabinet and groceries so we decided to skip TSC. I still have enough feed and cat food; I just wanted to buy extra so I don’t have to worry about running out later in the winter when the weather is worse.
We were planning to just go home, but there were things at our little local grocery store that we still needed to get. We decided that we would continue on and get all our grocery shopping done and not have to try to find the time to go to the store later this week.
After all our shopping was done, we drove home. EJ and I unloaded the suburban and put everything away. Then he went off to the garage to find a temporary counter for our coffee cabinet, and he set up the coffee machine on top and put the supplies in the cabinet. Meanwhile, I went out to care for the ducks and chickens, clean the kitty litter, and other such stuff. By the time we had everything done, we were totally exhausted and glad to sit and relax.
EJ and I always have fun together–whether we are going off on fun adventures or running errands. As we drive, we always talk, and discuss, and laugh. One of the things we talked about today was a movie called “Miss Meadows” that we had recently watched on Amazon Prime. I had started out thinking the movie was going to be a magical, lighthearted feel-good movie but it was a bit more complicated than that. Miss Meadows was a school teacher who loved children. She was a sweet, gentle, well-mannered and almost Disney princess sort of person who had taps on her shoes and often danced instead of walked. She also was a serial killer who killed murderers and child molesters who hurt the innocent. It was such an unexpectedly quirky, not-too-scary-or-gruesome movie that it was interesting and we’ve discussed it often since we’ve watched it. Here is the trailer for the movie:
I told EJ that our cat Madeline reminds me of Miss Meadow. Madeline has such a sweet, gentle personality…and yet she is also the ruthless killer of mice, shrews, and voles. EJ said that we should have named our cat Miss Meadows, although, of course, we got–and named–Madeline several weeks before we watched the movie. However, we decided today to add to Madeline’s name: She is now officially Miss Madeline Meadows. It has a nice ring to it and seems to fit.
In my post yesterday I shared a photo of one of Madeline’s latest kills. I knew it was not a shrew or a mole so I figured it must have been a really large fat mouse. When I showed the photo to EJ last night, he had doubts about whether it was actually a mouse. So I did a bit of research, and we are both convinced that it is a vole. I didn’t know much about voles, but I learned last night that voles are burrowing rodents who eat plants, roots, grasses, tree bark, fruits and nuts. They consume their weight in food every day. They cause a lot of damage. Voles are the most prolific breeders in the rodent family. They can reproduce up to 12 times a year with an average of three to seven pups per litter. A female vole can birth more than 100 offspring in a single year. The highest recorded vole population density is 2,000 voles per acre. Wow! As far as I’m concerned, Miss Madeline Meadows’ can kill as many voles–and mice and shrews–and she wants!
I Love To Go A Gardening 
My cats enjoy hunting too and even though I love the things they hunt, I love the fact they have the freedom to be proper cats even more in my garden and beyond!🐈🐈😀
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I totally agree! I think mice, voles, and shrews are kind of cute, but I just keep in mind the damage they cause. And I love that Miss Madeline Meadows is enjoying herself. She would definitely be miserable as an inside cat
🙂
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