Of little feet

I've been staying at Oma's house in the country.  It's being here that I realize I'm not as much a country girl as I like to think, and that's all thanks to little feet.

All God's creatures are precious, but some of them I prefer to love from afar.  I like to invoke the blessing from Fiddler on the roof:  May God bless and keep the Czar..... far away from us!  (Only I take artistic liberties, ad-libbing said creature in place of the Czar)

I've mentioned the birds a time or two, and posted a picture of the chipmunk.  There are also hummingbirds, any number of squirrels, a bunny, a fox, and a couple of helpful kitties that wander the area but these guys are not only cute, they are outside. It's the critters that invite themselves inside that I have issues with.

There are ants in one corner of the kitchen counter.  It happens only at this time of year, and then they're never seen again, but I've been doing all I can to kill them coax them to leave: Raid poison drops seem to be an ant hallucinogenic. I put drops down, and little tripped-out ants zig zag and circle around, looking like they're at a party rather than being at death's door. I've tried salt because I remember reading something about how the grains hurt their feet but I could be confusing that with deer in the garden, I'm not sure.  I heard that vinegar is effective, so I tried wiping the counter down with a vinegar-dampened cloth and when that didn't seem to make a difference I doused the counter with a lake of vinegar and they took to it like ducks to water. Instead of withering they were doing laps. I have now put out an ant trap, which is providing sustenance for all the swimming and partying going on. Not impressed but at least they're relatively contained.

The spiders are not so contained - they can be found in unexpected nooks and crannies, thinking the shower stall is dual occupancy or that they'd like to spin a little web on the wall beside my pillow.  No go, sorry.

At night, I hear a little scurrying something or other on the roof outside my bedroom window.  He's welcome to the shingles and even the eves trough, but I keep thinking about the flimsiness of the screen between me and him. I picture his little paws prying the corner free of the window frame so he could come in and ask for a bedtime story. I roll over, hug my pillow tight, and pretend I don't hear a thing. If I don't acknowledge it, it's not real, right?

There was a bat in the house once, and a mouse or two as well - thankfully not on my watch. If I were to come across a mouse outside, I'd be a total girl, squealing about how cute he was, offering to bring it food, hoping he had shelter from life's raging storms.  But the mouse inside my house is an interloper, getting the backside of my broom.

You can move a girl to the country, but you can't make her cohabitate with little feet.