Relative Something

We are at the lake! After an uneventful drive (other than the fabulous cheeseburger and fries on the road from the Lake Magnor Restaurant in Clayton) we arrived just before sunset and (oh, we also stopped in Hayward to pick up a pizza from Coop’s and some essentials from the grocery store [did someone say “ice cream?”]) we set about the routines of arrival.

“Do you have the key?” Check.

“Turn on the water.” Done.

“Can you start a fire in the fireplace?” Of course!

“I’m going to turn on the end of the football game.” Sure!

“Do you want to sleep in the loft or in Mom’s room?” Either’s fine with me.

“What the heck is in this drawer!?” Uh oh.

There was too much for it to be mouse turds. Was there a bag of wild rice up in the loft? No, that’s birdseed. Thistle, to be precise. We checked the pantry where birdseed would likely have been stored. Sure enough.

How could such a little hole lead to such a big spill?

This had to be a couple of lifetimes’ supply for the mice. I wonder how many trips up to the loft it took for the amount of seeds Cyndie found stashed up there. Being a wily sleuth, Cyndie checked a kitchen drawer that has had mouse droppings in the past.

Oh, yeah. About four-fifths thistle to one-fifth turds.

I found some old-style mouse traps in the basement mud room, and we baited them with thistle stuck on peanut butter after some intense sweeping, vacuuming, and scrubbing.

After pizza and some ice cream (not necessarily in that order) and the movie, “Conclave,” we were ready to turn in for the night. I climbed in the crisp, cool sheets and Cyndie went to get another blanket. She came back with the quilt sewed by Hays seamstresses many years ago up here when we brought my family for a Wildwood getaway.

Then she spotted mouse turds. Uh oh, again. Did they come from the quilt? She gently carried it out to inspect over a tile floor. I climbed out of the sheets and found more turds. Moving the pillows, it was obvious they hadn’t come from the quilt.

“How many mice have been sleeping in this bed?!”

Sheets were stripped and the bed was remade. I presented the option of sleeping in the loft, but we’d already settled in, and the bed would need to be remade anyway, so we soldiered on.

Cyndie eventually checked every other bed in the house, and the one we picked was the only one that had been messed up.

I checked traps this morning, and they hadn’t been touched. Birdseed is all moved to the garage and stowed in metal canisters. A load of garbage has already been dumped. Here’s hoping that’s the last of the stashes of thistle seeds.

The temperature outside right now is 2°F, and the wind chill is below zero. Only the edge of the lake has started to freeze, and the open water is steaming up thick clouds over the surface.

We are definitely up at the lake.

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