We were traveling for a week, into the tip of New Jersey, part of Pennsylvania, and down into Maryland.... mostly rural areas, but nothing as country-ish as where we live. In all the places we stayed, not once did I look under the bed for scorpions.
While we were away, one of the neighbor's cows got into our pasture and feasted on the grasses by our pond. Which is fine with me, being that it was just the one cow, but the other neighbor got worried because he didn't want his bull breaking the fence down to get at the cow by our pond. When we got home, the wayward cow was nowhere to be found, so I'm guessing the bull-owning neighbor took care of the cow.
Someone apparently dropped off a dog while we were gone, and my friend C who was taking care of the house and the cats for me got a doggie-surprise one morning. (Can't someone drop off a cute little fluffy dog once in a while? We always get these mangy looking huge dogs suddenly appearing on our property.) Our sort-of-outside cat Mickey was safely inside the fenced kitty-coop and the closed garage while we were gone, so the stray dog didn't have a chance to hurt Mickey at all..... and our other really-outside cat Gatsby is smart enough to head for the upper reaches of the barn when anything or anyone 'strange' comes onto the property (not exactly an attack cat). And our inside cat Sweet Pea was probably watching all the festivities with the dog from the windows of the TV room. When we got home, the stray dog was nowhere to be found on our property, but our neighbor across the road had also seen that dog while we were gone.
No scorpions under the bed last night (of course I checked), but there were two dead wasps in my sitting room (I think they might be attracted to the pink velvet sofa). A tiny mouse (very much dead) was on one of the glue traps in the utility closet, and there was a slowly-moving scorpion in the breakfast room this morning (the vacuum took care of him quite nicely).
Across the front doorway (which we hardly ever use) there was a huge brown spider sleeping in the middle of his doorway-wide web. Very nicely constructed, I must say, but the broom took care of that this morning. (I don't usually disrupt the spiders unless they're in my way, and even if I don't use that front door, I don't want to be looking out into a giant spider web every time I look out the front door.
While we were enjoying warm 80-degree weather in Maryland, a storm blew through this part of the hills and knocked down a huge limb from the pecan tree, plus lots of small limbs. Time to seriously get those two pecan trees trimmed up, so I've already called a tree guy and he'll be here this afternoon to trim, prune, cut, and clean up the branches. For once, I'm not going out into the yard to pick up all the branches that fell during that storm. I'll just let the tree guy do that job, and I'll sit inside and protect my manicure.
I've been up and awake since 5:30 this morning... got the laundry done, did the ironing, the suitcases are back in the storage closet. At some point tomorrow, I will have to go shopping for groceries. One thing about being back home in the hills here.... no restaurants, diners, and cafes on every corner, so I guess I'll have to start cooking again. (That's when I know the vacation is really over...)
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