F R O S T !!!!

OMG!  Frost is in the forecast for tonight!  Mother Nature is determined to make me turn the heat on.  Sheez! I was hoping to get a break from the electric company but it is definitely not happening!  Sistah Girl does not like to be cold.  Now, of course, I can turn the heat off in the morning--it will be a balmy 63 degrees by mid-day--but low 30's are no joke.

So everyone is preparing for the cooling temperatures.  Squirrels are hiding my pecans.  That huge groundhog, which I just can't get rid of, is taking his time eating what the squirrel has not hidden.  Let's not forget his wife, girlfriend, significant other, who appears from time to time.  Saw another sure-fire remedy to get rid of them.  Didn't work. 

Opening the kitchen door  to step out on the back porch, what do I see? Another damned mouse!  Now, really, boys and girls.  I don't know what killed the one inhabiting my sanctuary, aka computer room/office/den, but he had the unmitigated gall to die on the floor of my closet.  Didn't I put down those traps for him to go into and die peacefully, unseen?  NOOO, this thing curled himself up and died at the end of the closet housing my "stepping out," non-Wally clothes. I was too through! And, this closet is also where the suitcases are stored.  Lawd, Lawd.  You would have collapsed in hysterics if you had seen me trying to get him up...without looking at him.  UGH!  And, I wasn't too thrilled about lugging out the suitcase, either.  If a mouse had been in there, dead or alive, new luggage would have been in order.

So mouse #2 is looking at me.  And, I'm looking at him.  He's trying to find a place to hide and I'm thinking that he is going to make me late for work.  Aha!  He scuttled under the threshold (an opening the young man was to have filled).  Steel wool is on the list of things to buy. Along with more of those "kill 'em, no see 'em" traps.  Came home loaded down.  That gap is now loaded down with steel wool.  He'll have to find another way out.  The traps are baited and laid.  I have seen more mice this year than in the four years that I've lived here.  Do they know something that I don't?  The bottom line is that we cannot share the same space.

But with all of that, there is beauty to behold.  With freezing temps, many of the flowers are doomed.  Earlier this week, I took the opportunity to take a photo of this rose in front of the house.

Isn't it gorgeous?  The only rose on the bush and probably the best one produced all summer. I love it.

I'm trying to stay warm.  Be safe. Be Blessed.