February: Spring is coming
We kicked the month off by baiting rodent traps and catching greenhouse predators! That’s right, I finally got over my fears of setting the traps I bought in the heat of last summer’s garden predation. I’ve been filling my traps with what I think are mice from our pastures that sneak to munch all my delicate starts—especially kale. I thought it was rats, but I was wrong!
I still did catch a rat, in the barn. I shrieked as I pulled the trap from its hiding place, revealing the biggest rat I wish I had ever seen! The truth is that we have huge rats. Pack rats. Look at its muscled body! We have super rats here on the ranch and they creep me out!
The tally is 8 garden mice, 2 barn mice, 1 house rat, and 1 barn rat. Yippee! I can’t even tell you the thrill I get from finding mice in my traps. I feel equal parts thrilled and disturbed when I find a rat!
The tunneling into my greenhouse has stopped and we’ve slowed way down on catching anything in our traps. It feels good to be getting a grip on the rodent life here. Balance is being restored!
Now on to less disturbing February events. The weather has been equal parts lovely and not-so-lovely. We’ve been doing a lot of baking in the mornings and playing with hikes in the afternoons. One of our favorite things to play with is magnatiles. We like to build wood and hay sheds, and parking garages. My personal fav is house floorplans.
We’ve dreamed of building a house on the South end of our property, by Nathnaiel’s shop. It is fun to dream and talk about. I want a cold food storage cellar below my kitchen and a butler’s pantry aka a second kitchen/massive pantry. Nathaniel wants a protected courtyard and pavement between the house and his shop. Dreams of maybe someday but probably no day, haha.
We’ve been enjoying hikes on the ranch and at our favorite spot close to our house along the Deschutes River at Borden Beck Nature Preserve. Livi has one hate in this world and that is her car seat, so we stick close to home. Most days we stay at the ranch. We are lucky to have so much exploring that can be done in the pastures and up on the hill.
February brought a huge first for our family. Clancy spent his first night away from us, having a sleep over with my mom, his Nana. Nathaniel flew down to the Bay Area for the weekend to visit his grandfather De and to help make the weekend be easier for me and go faster for Clancy we excitedly moved forward with the sleepover idea that Clancy has been excited about for months!
I drove home sobbing. He never had a second thought. When I went for him the next day, he wanted to stay another night! I was relieved that he was so confident and comfortable but thought that he could have atleast pretended to miss me a tiny little bit, haha. He did however gush about how much he missed Livi, so that is sweet.
Nana came over and had a sleepover the second night of Nathaniel’s trip. I was glad of the company and extra time with my mom.
Reunited with baby sister
We missed Nathaniel so much though, even just a two-night absence was felt deeply. His welcome home the next day was to tragedy.
