A series of unfortunate events

On the list of things you don't want to find in your house there are a few that come to mind: a serial killer hiding in your basement; half a mouse head; a wasp invasion; an angry bear. And yet, I found 2 out of the 4 in my house this week and it's barely Wednesday. It's been a rough couple of days. 

It all started on Monday morning (which unfortunate story doesn't?). I didn't miss the alarm, but I stayed in bed longer than I should have because I didn't want to get up. When I eventually reluctantly crawled out from under the covers I really had to get on with it. 

Now is probably a good time to mention that I'm currently in charge of the farm. Rich is visiting his mom in Germany, and while he's gone I'm the one responsible for keeping everything alive. I'm also the one making the rules, and unlike Rich I don't run a tight ship. The dogs and cats have free reign to come in and out of the house whenever they please, because I like the company. What that means is that I keep the door ajar quite often so my 4-legged kids have easy access inside and out.   

What it also means is that there are no boundaries anymore, and that's turning into a problem. 

On said Monday I headed outside to do morning chores before work. I left the door ajar because Callie-Cat was inside, and I learnt the hard way that you don't lock a barn cat that's used to freedom inside the house (diarrhea everywhere - they get stressed).

When I returned, 2 more cats had joined her, and I didn't have time to round them up and kick them out, so I left the door open. 

Big mistake. Huge.

When I got home 8 hours later, everything looked peaceful at first. I threw my purse on the counter, kicked off my shoes - and almost stepped on a wasp that was crawling on the floor. I recently got stung by one, and they seem to smell it on you even weeks later, making it much more likely to get stung again. They sure stick together. I quickly got a thick book and killed that sucker. Straightening up and breathing a sigh of relief, I glanced towards the row of windows in our living room - and froze. At least half a dozen wasps were crawling on the windows. Taking a closer look around I suddenly saw them everywhere: on the floor, on the walls creeping towards the skylight, already dead on the windowsills. It was like a scene out of a Hitchcock movie!

I wanted to panic, but there was no time. I went on a killing spree. The wasps were already half dead, since we had our first frost the night before, so it wasn't hard - but it was nasty. By the end I must have killed more than 2 dozen wasps, and I still find dead bodies of wasps who died naturally now, two days later. 

But that wasn't all. 

Later that night I found another unpleasant surprise. At first I didn't know what it was: it was a small, dark lump lying next to the dog bed. The dogs had checked it out but turned around and left it. Upon closer inspection I had my second Alfred Hitchcock moment of the day: it was a severed mouse head. Or to be more precise, it was half a head, only the face. Our cats are great mousers (which is awesome since that's the main reason we have them), and one of them must have dragged a mouse in and ate it, but left a loving present for me. They shouldn't have. (Really shouldn't have.) 

And that was my week so far. How's yours?  

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