Savoir Faire

Posted on March 1, 2020 by TJ

We sure have had some crazy weather this winter. Wednesday and Thursday we were under a Winter Storm Warming. It snowed steadily for those two days with strong winds that blew the slow around and caused whiteout conditions. But yesterday the temperatures began to rise and today it reached almost 50 degrees! Of course, the snow began to melt. This has been the pattern all winter long: days of cold/snow/wind followed by days of warmth/melting snow. This is a video I took of the snow on Thursday.

Photo from Victoria_Borodinova at Pixabay.

The shortest route to the coop is through our attached garage and through the back door into the garden. This morning as I headed out to the coop to care for the chickens and cats, I heard a noise in the southeast corner of the garage. It sounded as if there was something there, probably an animal of some sort: raccoon? mouse? rat? stray cat? I started to go over to check it out, but then I remembered that in every scary movie, a victim(s) always hears a noise and goes over to check it out and gets killed by the monster, alien, or serial killer. I don’t normally watch scary movies, but I have seen a few, and I always want to cry out a warning: “Duh. Do NOT go check out the strange noise!” So this time I took my own advice and continued out to the coop. I’m my way back into the house, I paused in the garage to listen, but I didn’t hear anything, so I think the “whatever-it-was” left. I did go outside the garage and look for footprints in the snow, but I didn’t see any. I was going to tell EJ about the “thing” in the garage as soon as he woke, but I forgot until tonight.

My chickens are laying so many eggs now that I posted them for sale at FB Marketplace and area buy/sell groups. I’ve gotten a few interested nibbles. But I also got a couple people wanting to buy my chickens. I replied politely but I was thinking that, uh, my posting clearly stated that I was selling the EGGS, not the CHICKENS. One guy, besides wanting to buy my chickens asked if I’d sell him the eggs for $5 total (instead of $9) if he bought three dozen. I was thinking that takes a bit of audacity to expect me to sell them for almost half price. I don’t really make money on my eggs–I am just selling the excess eggs and the money merely helps with the cost of the feed. I answered him politely but I let him know that (1) I’m not selling my chickens and (2) No, I’m not giving their eggs away. Sheesh. If he wants cheaper eggs he should go buy them at Wal-mart.

We are still trying to get rid of the mice that get into our kitchen cupboard. EJ’s trap under the sink caught a mouse the first night he set it, but after that the other mouse kept springing the trap and eating the bait without getting caught. The mouse (or mice) is so clever that we named it Savoir Faire, after the cartoon mouse from our childhood. The cartoon involved a battle of wits between Savoir Faire and Klondike Kat. Of course, the mouse usually outwitted the cat and so far our mouse is outwitting us. But like Klondike Kat, we aren’t giving up.

This afternoon EJ, Hannah Joy, and I drove to Goodwill so EJ could buy some new pants for work. He didn’t find any pants, but he did get a sweatshirt for work. I bought a couple washcloths, dishcloths, dish towels, and hand towels to replace the ones Hannah has chewed up. On the way home, we made a quick stop at Meijers to get a few grocery items. I had found a coupon for “buy one, get one free” cups of coffee at Biggby’s on the Internet, but we decided not to save our money. We are moving in to “No Spend March,” in which we are frugally buying as little as we possibly can. “No Spend March” is following No Spend November, December, January, and February. It’s become something of a challenge.