It’s been a while since we’ve had a visit from Mr. Dead Mouse. But don’t worry—you should know by now that it’s never too long before he drops in for a visit.

This time he at least had the good sense to drown himself in the dog’s water bucket—outside.

His well-executed offing earned him a burial with full honors in our local memorial garden, Dappled For Rest Glade.

Until we meet again, Mr. Dead Mouse…

There’s a big pasture full of ex-rodeo bulls near my house. Didn’t they win the lottery—Free Union mountain views vs. slaughterhouse!

I walk Tuck on the gravel road past their farm every now and then. Last weekend, for the first time since I got him, Tuck was able to calmly watch this bull from the fence without a single bark. Progress!

But if this little woolly woodpile hitchhiker’s coloration is any clue, we may be in for a mild winter.

Which would be just fine with me!

As an antidote to a bit of a downer blog week, yesterday morning was magical here on the farm. A thick fog surrounded the house as a weak sun tried to fight its way through. It made for a gorgeous scene in every direction, and while out with the dog early I found the hayfield full of magnificent spider webs all pearled up with dew.

Of course no sooner had I snapped this picture than a morning-exuberant puppy—yes, that’s him in the background—tore through the hay, rendering that masterpiece into this:

But it was beautiful while it lasted.

Which calls my attention to one of the most unanticipated benefits I’ve received from raising a dog here on the farm. He’s forced me outside during times when I wouldn’t normally have left the house. I remember last winter, when he was a brand-new puppy getting me out of bed for a middle of the night pee break, we stood in the middle of a snowy, frosty-crunchy field as shooting stars whizzed overhead. And even now, each morning we walk the property after his breakfast, checking on this tree and that flower and making note of all the changes that happened over night. It keeps both of us grounded and deeply in tune with the land we live on. It’s one of the best parts of my day, and a totally unexpected joy.

I was driving home late last night when my headlights flashed on a distinctive shape in the road right in front of my house, strangely near the deer incident of earlier this week. I thought I’d seen a snake, but not just any snake. So I turned around and drove back again, and once I determined the creature was dead, I figured it was worth further investigation.

Allow me to stop right here and assure you I don’t suffer from necromania, a suspicion you’d be forgiven for having if you’ve read this blog for a while and noted its frequently occurring theme of dead animals. My interest in this particular bit of roadkill was strictly scientific: I could tell from the car that this wasn’t an ordinary black snake, which thus far have been the only snakes I’ve seen on the farm.

After I’d parked the car and grabbed a flashlight, my dark, drive-by suspicion was confirmed. A copperhead—the first I’ve seen around this property in the two and a half years I’ve owned it. It was a young one, less than two feet long, and the front half of its body was squashed and the skin flayed. But there was enough nonR-rated material left to make a positive i.d.

The snake could have been crossing the road, or now that night time temperatures are dropping it was perhaps soaking up some heat held in the warm pavement. What’s unusual to me is that so many of my acquaintances are recently reporting copperhead stories, including one man who was bitten by one that got in his house, and another woman whose dog was just bitten on the face. Many people are rather folksily conjecturing that last month’s earthquakes has the snakes out and on the move, but who knows? Seeing this snake tonight, though, was a good reminder for me to remain vigilant around my place, particularly when I am out in the dark.

Early Monday morning I was awoken by Tucker barking a steady, strong alarm downstairs in his crate. I’d never heard him do that before, so I got out of bed and peered out the window into the darkness. There was a car parked off the road right in front of my house, and in its headlights I could see a woman moving around outside. I thought she maybe had wrecked her car so I pulled my boots and coat on over my pajamas, grabbed my Maglite, and stepped outside.

A man emerged from the car and explained that they’d hit a small deer right in front of my house. It hadn’t done much more than break their car’s headlight, but the deer was lying by my mailbox, still alive. They didn’t know what to do with it.

“I have a small knife in the car, but I’m on my way to work and wearing a white shirt,” the man said.

“Just leave it,” I said, hoping that it was injured enough that it would soon die on its own. The couple got back in their car and continued down the dark road.

As I got ready for work I kept checking on the deer, which had enough strength left to flop circles around the quince bush by the mailbox. As I approached it each time, it tried to run but appeared to have one or more broken legs. As it got later it appeared to lose strength, and its eyelids drooped and were closed by the time I left the farm. Unfortunately, it was still breathing.

From work I called the county police to send someone out to shoot the deer, which they did. They also claimed VDOT would be along to collect the body.

Of course VDOT workers have better things to do like stand around staring at potholes, and when I got home from work the deer was still there, now with a fresh bullet hole in its chest and minus its eyeballs and intestines thanks to a flock of gigantic vultures. I couldn’t have this animal rotting in my front yard, so I tied a piece of twine around its neck and began to tug it, revealing a dark blood spot and spent red shell case under the body. It was much heavier than I was expecting–I’d guess at least 65 pounds. In short bursts I dragged the deer all around the perimeter of my property line into the field behind my house. I took the long way to avoid dragging its scent through my yard, trying to avoid enticing my dog to follow the trail.

The creature grew heavier when we hit the thigh-high grass of the hayfield. I had to stop every few feet just to rest and readjust the twine that was cutting into my hands. Each time I started up again the deer’s leathered snout banged against the heels of my boots.

I found a nice hollow several hills away from the house and pointed the sightless body west, the direction it was traveling when it was hit. I tied the twine into a bow around the deer’s neck and walked away. When I got back to the site of the kill even the shell case was gone, carried off by the red-attracted scavengers who still watched from a nearby tree, wondering what I’d done with their dinner.

It was only late that night, lying in bed, that I realized I could have loaded the body into the tractor bucket and saved myself the grisly march. Though the idea of washing blood and guts off the tractor has similarly low appeal.

Three days later what’s stayed with me from this experience, other than the pearly whiteness of the inside of a freshly opened eye socket, is pride in Tuck’s developing guard/alert dog skills. He’s still young and actively figuring out what’s normal versus what’s not, and I am doing a lot of work to try to communicate the level of vigilance and warning I expect from him. For example, he still doesn’t reliably bark when people drive in the driveway, yet will sound off in response to a perfectly normal truck just passing by on the road. He is literally, right now, finding his voice. For him to alert me on Monday so calmly but effectively to a very abnormal scenario on the road in front of the house impresses me, and it bodes well for the partnership we are building.

At 4:00 in the wee hours of Thursday morning I was awakened by a familiar scrambling in my bedroom. At this point I should know better and just roll over and go back to sleep. But the responsible homeowner/vendettive bitch in me just can’t resist the call of a good MOUSE RODEO!

So up I sprang to find my four-legged assistant already on the case. Kitty was chasing a poor little mouse to and fro around the bedroom. I swear she was playing with him, and I haven’t seen a mortally cuter sight than the mouse staring up at her, impotent boxing fists at the ready, chattering hail Mary’s in mouse-speak while Kitty watched, tail twitching. This went on for a few minutes, with me shouting encouragement from the sidelines. I know it’s gross, but I wanted nothing more than for the cat to sink her teeth into this thing and be done with it so I could go back to bed. But it soon became apparent that I’d woken up for a spectator sport, not a blood sport.

But damned if I was giving this invasive creature the chance to continue its life in my palace. So into my closet I went for The Shoe Box. And then I chased that damn mouse around my bedroom, in and out of my closet, until I finally grabbed him:

Trouble was, I only managed to get his body in the box while his poor wee head stuck outside. What to do?

It was now about 4:15 in the morning, and I was buzzing from my adrenaline-induced hunt. There was no way I was going to let the mouse escape, and I knew that if I tried to get him properly in the box odds were he’d escape. So I grabbed a roll of packing tape and with one hand sealed him halfway in his cardboard coffin.  And then I slipped him into a plastic bag and went to do what I do with all small mammals I am out to dispatch: put him in the freezer. Only my freezer was too full with chilling beer steins and venison sausage, so this guy met his end in the fridge. And I went upstairs to wipe mouse blood stains off my floor. Turns out this actually was a blood sport for Kitty.

When I got the mouse out the next day he was good and dead, and one little eyeball was frosty white from freezing against the bag. I chucked him into the woods for the fox, and then went inside to give my partner Kitty a well-deserved scratch about her ears.

Yesterday my dad and I finished a huge project—the crawlspace pit—a big job that had been lingering in various states since the house was completed two Mays ago. The pit is on the backside of the house between the chimney and the porch. When the house was nearing completion, we weren’t satisfied with the way my contractor proposed to finish its entryway. So we decided to take this job off his list of responsiblities and put it on ours. Where it sat, for more than a year. But now it’s done and here’s how it all went down.

My dad had visions of creating the mother off all pits—big enough to get in and out of relatively easily and that one could pass tools and equipment through (a lot of my house systems are in the crawlspace, including the interior HVAC unit, dehumidifier, and water heaters). The pit would also have to deflect water from the nearby downspout, and keep critters out of the crawlspace.

The unfinished pit shortly after moving in last June. Pretty, huh?

The base of the old air unit, propped up with a 2×4, made a temporary door that sufficed until a snake decided to make his home in the crawlspace and freak me out. And each time it rained, I had a red plunge pool that made a nice habitat for other local wildlife:

Last fall I’d had enough of the animals and Dad and I started the project. We poured a concrete footer underneath the opening, and he framed in and built a rock-solid door. We also poured the floor of the pit, and designed it to have a sunken drainage sump that was big enough to fit a pump into should we still have water collection problems when it was all done. This all was a bit tricky as we were trying to join our new concrete up to the jagged edges left when the builder made a hole in the original house foundation. We had to be meticulous in pouring the patch job that would join the old foundation to the new pit walls.

Dad formed the exterior pit wall last Thanksgiving, and got some of the rebar reinforcement tied into place. And then it got too cold to pour concrete, and the pit sat like this until last weekend. Man, it was ugly!

We took advantage of the long July 4 weekend to re-attack this project, prompted, in part, by the recent mousecapade. The area around the doorframe—which was to be filled with concrete—was perhaps letting the little guys inside. So Dad formed the interior wall, I learned how to tie steel and bend rebar using the tractor bucket . Here’s the completed form enclosing the rebar reinforcement, right after I got greasy up to my armpit painting the plywood with motor oil to help the finished concrete release.

We spent two almost-12-hour, 96-degree days transporting, breaking up, mixing and shoveling almost 1,000 pounds of concrete into the form. I spread most of it with my hands, and rodded down each batch. Hey, it just wouldn’t be a holiday weekend without a Stalag–like labor camp—just like last year!

Then came the worst part, chiseling out the nails on those 2×4 braces on top so we could remove them and finish the surface underneath. I say this is the worst part because it’s the only part where I hurt myself (other than general muscle strain), beating my hands up so that they still hurt. But this bunker is rock-solid!

The form sat a week until yesterday, when we removed it and finished the concrete off with a stone. I have to say I think it looks great, and the best part is the relief I feel at having this major undertaking completed. Here’s the pit once we backfilled with dirt around it. It’s got a great drain that’s embedded in the floor in a thick bed of gravel. Again, it will fit a sump pump should the need arise:

Now a nice, big, clean entry into the crawlspace! If this doesn’t raise my property value, I don’t know what will!

The crawlspace pit was a year-plus, torturous project for both my dad and me, but I am thrilled with the outcome. Thanks, Dad, for a great pit and for teaching me all about concrete—a new medium for me and one I find I rather enjoy!