Traffic Jam Poker

This is a phrase I put together this morning driving into work.

You get on the road and are given a set of lanes to operate.  You can keep them or change your route.  In light traffic it's best to go your regular direction, but in heavy traffic this is a gamble.  Stay in the slowly moving traffic?  Or exit for what is a seemingly faster route only to get held up by a bunch of other people making that same decision or by traffic lights or yet another accident?

Change lanes?  Or stay here? 

Change lanes to pass a slower car only to miss your exit?

It's always a gamble.

And game face.  Oh that is sooo important in poker.  Game face for Traffic Jam Poker is letting other people in your lane or you trying to get into a different lane.  Speed up, slow down.  Everyone is jockeying for a spot.

Some people take this game very seriously, others just go with the flow.  I think I'm somewhere in the middle.  I verbalize a lot as I drive and it makes me think I am filled with rage, but the idiot quotient is high so I'm sure it's them, not me.

Thinking of it like a card game may lower my stress levels on the highway.

Yellow Beady Eyes

This is what I sent to my friend this morning.   (excuse the run-on sentences, names have been changed, swear words were modified to avoid spam filters)

SO

We bought solar lights to stick in the darkest part of the yard.  I put them in the front to charge up and last night they were shining so I decided to put them in the backyard.  In the meantime Hubby says he thought he heard a golfball hit the yard earlier so I figured I would take my quasi-flashlight and go search for it.  Weeeeellll back by the compost bin where it is really super duper dark, two yellow eyes reflected in my light.  I thought it was a cat.

I was wrong.

Good thing I didn't go up to it either.  Pirana there was a mother forking possum in my yard, staring at me.  Thank god I had some sort of shoes on but they were flip flops and I go running to the front yard like a grizzly bear is after me.  I'm pretty sure the possum just sat there and watched me hobble away, still holding my solar light, feet "thuck thuck thucking" away.

It does explain why my vole traps (can I live any further into the wilderness or what???) but anyways it explains why my traps keep getting moved.  It's not like the possum can open them to get out the birdseed and half-chewed juicy fruit gum, but I guess he's going to bat those traps around until something falls out.

Living With Voles - Day Two

Some gum was missing from the holes.  Hmmm... I ought to count the holes because there really are a lot.  The missing gum is probably false hope because most of it remains.  Either it was pulled further into the hole or knocked out of the way.  I have no reason to believe it was actually consumed.

A Facebook friend insists that JuicyFruit is the ticket.  I will purchase that later today and see how it works, but Hubby has also been directed to pick up the mouse killer stuff.  I need those critters GONE.

The Holes In My Yard

Shortly after we put in an offer on this house I discovered that the bigass yard had some issues going on with the lawn.  Not all of it.  The biggest portion is thick, lush, green grass.  But this one section is mostly weeds.

At first I suspected moles but none of the identifying mounded tunnels ran through the yard.  Maybe it was mole damage from the past?  Then I wondered if it was a fungus of some sort?  I had noticed spots on one of the trees and a couple of the rose bushes.

Over the weekend I discovered tons and tons of holes in my yard.  These were something different than cicadas emerging from the ground.  I accept those bastards like ant hills, just part of the natural outdoors that is easier to ignore than battle.  In one hole there was an acorn.  Oh okay, I thought, squirrels are ripping up my yard.

Yes, yes, I realize that is a rather passive attitude, however, squirrels are not hell-bent on devouring one's lawn or ripping it to shreds to gnaw on the beasties that live under the lawn.  They make random holes, inadvertently planting future oak trees.  This damage is minimal and I can live with it. 

On Sunday I decided to mow the lawn (yes with my awesome new riding mower, vrroom vroom).  I moved the boat shaped kid pool...

 

Notice the nasty lack o'grass?

Lo and behold, under the boat were TWO brown critters.  They were longer than a mouse but not quite shaped like a mole.  I totally forgot that moles have digging flippers or I would have instantly realized these were not moles.  One darted off but the other just sat there staring at me, and me at it.  Was it a mouse?  It had mouse-like ears and a very mousy face but a shorter tail.  I realize most people DETEST mice but really, they are cute, if you can get past the fact that they carry fleas and the plague and will devour your entire pantry.  This guy was super duper cute.  I resisted the urge to touch it and then it ran away.  

Great.  I have mice.  At least they aren't in the house... yet.  As I said it wasn't a type of mouse that looked familiar.  The tail really was the wrong length.  I broke down and googled it.  Yes, it is a type of mouse, more commonly known as a vole.

I have since educated myself about voles.  Voles are vegetarians and prefer grass.  They LOVE golf courses.  Oh yeah there is one just beyond the house across the street.  Lucky me - golf balls and voles in my yard!  (we are collecting the golf balls and so far have found five)

Voles burrow down to a colony.  The exterior hole is the diameter of a broom handle.  Yep!

Moles form visible tunnels as they paddle just below the surface.  Voles, on the other hand, basically plow the top of the land for their tunnels.  This isn't quite as obvious in my yard.  I just have lots of brown patches with dead grass.  A lot of the green that has taken over are weeds.

I posted to Facebook my plight.  The suggestions ranged from getting a cat (two prowl the neighborhood already), shoving cat poop into the holes, concocting a brew of human piss, dishsoap, and garlic juice to pour down the holes, to dropping handfuls of human hair into the holes.  The last one would be easy considering how much I shed.

One of the easiest and least gross suggestions was to put pieces of partially chewed gum in the holes.

Guess what I had in my desk????

A "bat" filled with old gumballs.  

 

Seriously, shit like this only encourages my packrat tendencies.  Of course I have old gum.  And yes, I was willing to chew it.

Last night Doubting Teenager dispensed gumballs to his deranged mother who pranced from hole to hole depositing half chewed gum.  After a while he sort of got into it and was helping me find more holes.  Holy crap something has been very busy in my yard.  Most disturbing are the fresh holes in my lush, pretty grass.  This is all out war and it may mean forcing the menfolk of my house to urinate in coffee cans.

Fortunately this morning when I checked a few holes before heading off to work I noticed the gum was gone.  

I will keep you apprised of my vole adventures.

Friday Fragments - August 2, 2013

It's been a while since I've done this and it looks like Mrs 4's isn't hosting at the moment.  So I'll just frag here.

Let's see, since my last fragment back in... March?  I have bought and moved into a house.  Big ass ordeal but I love my new home.

We finally rolled out the database at work that was supposed to roll out last September, then October, then December, then January.  hahahaha.  June 1st!  It was not smooth, AT ALL.  We are still mopping up the fallout.  Which by the way, I closed on my house June 13th.  So my stress levels were astronomic as you can imagine. 

My kid is forced to change high schools as a result of this move.  Unhappy and excited all rolled into one.  He is hoping to run into old friends from when we lived here 7 years ago.

I'm getting a second grandbaby!!!!!!  A girl is expected in November and we will share middle names.  That makes me ridiculously happy.  So in the middle of moving, hottest day of the year, sweating like a dog, I'm crying happy tears on the sidewalk where they decided to share this news.  Buttheads.

Recently we spent a weekend with my college roommate who I haven't seen for a while.  It was a great time to catch up, hang out, and relax.  It was a mini vacation that I very truly needed.  Our husbands hit it off so I hope to have more frequent encounters.  Even though I live literally two blocks away from her dad's house it is likely she will take up my offer to stay at my house.  Dad's gets crowded with other family members and this would save her a hotel stay.  This thought excites me to no end.

So, what's new with you?  Any big plans to finish out the summer? 

Riding Mower - Day One

I'm pretty sure if I kept a journal of my riding mower experiences everything after day one would be pretty boring.  In other words, don't expect a "Day Two" post.

But let's discuss the days leading up to Day One.  First there was shopping for the house and me declaring "holy crap that's a big yard, we are going to need a riding lawn mower."  And The Husband condescendingly stating that he and his brothers had mowed a full acre and blah blah blah blah.  Whatever, Dickhead, YOU won't be mowing this yard, nor will any of your brothers.  Just me and my out-of-shape, middle-aged self.  We're getting a riding lawn mower.  I quietly kept my argument to myself, I would win this war.

The weeds were knee high and it was time to at least butcher them to keep the neighbors from complaining.  It was easy enough but I did get very sweaty.  The Husband started to back down from his notion that a half acre lot was no big deal to tame.

The following week I worked a smaller patch of very thick, very beautiful grass.  THAT was a workout and it kept killing the mower.  He took pity on me and then next day we were standing in Lowe's contemplating the world of riding mowers.

Neither one of us knows shit about riding lawn mowers.  There was one on sale at a palatable price that had been returned for repairs.  We were told it was the cadillac of the mower world.  When the salesguy rattled off horse power and blade sizes and vroom vrooms and whatever else, The Husband's eyes got really wide and was completely sold.  It was all fixed up and ready to go, except that we knew we were going to need a mulcher attachment, because let's be honest, bagging a half acre of grass is going to be even more back breaking than pushing a regular mower over it.

I could get into a whole rant over Lowe's decision to stop carrying mulching kits in-store and the fiasco of online ordering and getting it installed.  With the help of the store manager the part was ordered and installed on our mower.  It took forever and a day to get the part delivered, but pick your battles, folks.  We really did land an awesome deal for this vehicle so waiting two weeks was worth it.

And then it arrived. 

It sat in our garage with us pushing and poking buttons and levers and nary a sound was emitted.  Once we figured out how to start the thing, both feet on peddles pushed all the way down, choke out, gas all the way up... then we had to figure out how to make it GO.  I'm sure we spent close to an hour, turning it on, turning it off, revving it up, flooding the engine.  He was on the phone with the store, I was online searching for an owners manual.  We knew it was something basic, a special sequence or an overlooked button, but WHAT????  It turns out there is a tiny wire thing hanging out the back of the mower that basically puts it into neutral so you can push it on and off loading trailers.  ooooh

I had been inside for a while and ventured out to see if Hubby had any progress.  Evidently he discovered that wire thing and was speeding up and down the street!  He should have stayed on it and maybe the lawn would have been properly mowed but I hopped on and was not letting go of the controls. 

At first I just wanted to see how it mowed.  Well hell, since I'm there, let's knock out these weeds that are a horrid eye sore.  And then I wanted to see how it held up against the thick grass in the back corner - brilliantly, by the way.  Suddenly I am criss-crossing the yard in no specific pattern, mowing the grass.  I really should get up on my roof to take a picture of my tracks.  I broke every rule of mowing.  I went back over areas previously mowed, I didn't follow my tracks, I darted from one side of the yard to the other.  Granted the whole thing is now mowed, and completely in under 30 minutes thankyouverymuch, but it looks like a sixth grader on crack got his hands on a riding lawn mower for the first time.

Did I mention it was raining?