Early mornings at our house are Mom’s time. The house is dark and quiet; the only
critters that are barely stirring are the two cats that got tossed off the bed when
Mom got up to silence her alarm. She heads
to the kitchen, starts the coffee and takes that few minutes to check e-mails
and bank balances before getting on with the day.
This morning, the computer was barely waking up and the only
light in the kitchen was the glow from the red light on the front of the coffee
pot. Thursday’s include checking the
order for the Fairfield Farmer’s Market.
It is an online farmers market where the vendors list their items that
will be available that week and orders are taken until midnight on
Wednesday. All the produce, jams, jellies,
dairy, meat, etc. are dropped off at one central location and can be picked up
by the customer at four different locations throughout the county. There is a little less meet and greet, but it
is very convenient in today’s online age.
Slam, Clank, Crash! Those darned cats had knocked something
over in the back room, again! Most of
them are in their mid-teens, one would think that by now, they would be done
climbing the walls.
The house returned to its slumber and the whirring of the
CPU joined the drip of the coffee maker.
SQUEEEEEE, AAAAHHHH,
EEEEEEEE, AAAAAHHHH
That can’t be good! I
jumped out of my chair, turned on the lights – all the cats were accounted
for. Little man rarely wakes up this
early - my heart dropped to my toes - I ran to the living room and flashed on
the light. Little man lay snoozing on
his father’s chest where I left them around three o’clock this morning. Instant relief!
Crash! SQUEEEEEE, AAAAHHHH, EEEEEEEE, AAAAAHHHH,
Crash!
The sounds were coming from the basement. I grabbed a flash light, pulled open the door
and carefully descended the narrow stairs – my heart was still racing, I was barefoot
and hadn’t had my first cup of coffee.
Nothing should be in the basement except the water pump, the boiler and
the water heater; if those mechanicals were making these kinds of noises then
we were in for a rough ride. The
squealing continued as I reached the bottom of the stairs. In the far corner under the shelves of empty
preserving jars and behind the old water heater there was a ruckus.
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| Photo courtesy of: http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/species/weasel |
Eyes still clouded with sleep and just calming down from sheer
terror, I couldn't figure out what I was looking at in the circle of yellow
cast from the flash light. After what
seemed like an eternity, it let go of the mouse that it had in its grasp and
turned toward me. A WEASEL was inside my
house! I thought about throwing the pipe
wrench at it, but I wasn’t sure if it would only get mad and come after me –
they have some sharp teeth. Deciding I
wasn’t much of a threat, it returned to terrorizing his breakfast. I found an empty wicker basket and attempted
to capture it. Remember, I haven’t had
any coffee yet; wicker can’t keep a weasel in for more than 15 or 20 seconds
before it would chew through the sides. He
wisely decided that I wasn’t going to allow him to finish his meal so he
skulked off, climbing the stacked stone foundation and headed out along the
plumbing towards the old ice house.
There is a trap set in the basement and when I get home we
will set one outside as well. The last
thing that will be taking up residence with a long winter coming is a weasel –
our chickens could be in for trouble with a family of these buggers hanging
around. I was awake now, running behind
schedule, but awake! I still took 24 oz of
that hot, energizing deliciousness to work with me.
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