End of summer

  

Now we have a mouse who rolls hickory nuts from the kitchen into a cupboard door in the bathroom

every night. We have set a trap with a smorgasbord of delights, peanut butter and cheese, but he / she's resisted that temptation so far.  Mama Kitty sleeps while he trundles nuts past her on the maple floor boards. This is a persistent mouse, a mouse with magical thinking. Magically the nuts are going to fit under the door.

How Sausages Are Made

Heat wave today!  Panic in Wisconsin.  Above are a few pictures of my work today:
stuffing (with organic kapok), and sewing up new ragweave pillows.  I thought of a sausage factory.

Speaking of, here's some fun summer reading that cheered me up.

Chester's Comfort

I used carpet tacks to stick a piece of my favorite rag weave to the front of this "cabinet" made from an old hand built bee box. The bee box is made with dovetail joints, and has carved in hand holds. There is a  new shelf inside, courtesy of my carpenter-husband, and a little bit of waxy residue from the former tenants. There is a cup hook.

Chester lived alone on the family place a few miles from us, when we moved here 30 years ago.
He was an old man. His house had disappeared long ago behind trees and uncut brush.  Sometimes I saw him walking along the road to the country store, but we never knew much about him. In the winter there was just a footpath in the snow on his driveway.  He didn't farm, he didn't drive.  One year he died.
When the property was sold, the new owners found outside his front door, a huge pile of discarded
maraschino cherry bottles and Vienna sausage cans.

 

I imagine a jar of cherries on the shelf, a can of Vienna sausages, and maybe a tin of Copenhagen snus.