Objects In Photo Are Deader Than They Appear

Yesterday was 73 degrees for my evening driveway walk. I had to go bare-armed in my short-sleeve shirt. I wore my sock cap because it's so attractive since Farmer H doesn't want anyone to see me in it because my Sweet, Sweet Juno gets excited and starts barking when she sees me wearing it so I could to keep the high winds from using my hair to flagellate my face. I have a cap, but the wind catches the bill and blows it off my head.

This afternoon, the temperature was 32. Same wind. I shudder to think what the wind chill was, but my face was numb when I was finished with five driveways. I had contemplated skipping a day, or trying out the treadmill in Farmer H's workshop. Then I remembered that the trash dumpster had to go up before 6:00 a.m. tomorrow. So I figured I might as well finish off the four trips, since I had to do one anyway.

I'd been to town for lunch with my best ol' ex-teaching buddy Mabel. We met at Hardee's and I had a chicken bowl. COMBO! It was actually a wise choice, because my first inclination was to feast at a Chinese buffet. I put the brakes on that road to not-heaven last night. AND I've never had the combo, which was an added side of chips and salsa. Which I brought home to be part of supper. Anyhoo...thanks, Mabel, for lunch and my birthday gifts! You're the wind beneath my sock cap! And I mean that in a good way.

As we parted ways, Mabel making the left turn to go out the county lettered highway past my turnoff, and me going straight across the intersection to the gas station chicken store for my 44 oz Diet Coke...snowflakes started to swirl! Well. THREE snowflakes flitted past. And then sleet rained down upon T-Hoe and my head. I was worried about Mabel, who had a considerable drive. She's not fond of adverse conditions. She always caught a ride to work on the school bus when inclement weather was forecast. But don't you worry about my best ol' ex-teaching buddy Mabel. She arrived alive. I didn't tell her this...because I'm not a particularly spiritual person...but I said a little prayer for her safe arrival as I was on the way home. Didn't cost nothin'.

After my walk, I didn't really have a decent snack for my fleabags, so all they got was some expired Nutty Oat bread, and some Save A Lot tortilla chips with a Use By date of Sept 19. You know what? They still ate it.

It was on my way back inside, with frozen face and fingers (though I had worn gloves while walking, I do not wear them during evening snack time, because as I sit between the dogs as a barrier for snack-poaching, I sometimes text). Like this evening, when Farmer H sent me a picture that it was snowing at his workplace. Of course, that was no snow like I had ever seen. It's clearly sleet.

That wasn't even in the forecast, as far as I saw online. I don't bother to watch the news meteorologists any more. Since I'll be staying home the next day, no matter what the weather.

When the dogs were done snacking, and making fake menacing overtures towards Copper, who was standing on the brick sidewalk watching, I stood up from the front porch pew to head back into the Mansion. And there it was, beside the front door. My fine how-do-you-do.

Objects in photo are deader than they appear. Even though that mouse looks like it's overacting, it's not alive. Nor is the dog, being something that Farmer H picked up at an auction. Jack used to bark at it during his puppyhood.

I'm betting Jack is the one who put the mouse there. The three cats don't do anything but, respectively, growl at Jack (Dusty the calico female), eat double his weight/get humped by Jack (Stockings the tuxedo male), and play hard-to-get then claw at Jack when he attempts to hump (Simba the tan striped). Juno might be a killer, but she's not one to fetch or carry.

I let that doornail-dead mouse lie. Farmer H should have seen it when he went out to feed his animals. He might have flung it by the tail out into the front yard. But if it's like his mud clods, Mousy will be laying there tomorrow, undisturbed.