Lazy Tuesday

The temperatures went into the mid-80s, and it is a lazy day all around.

Joe stayed home to work on the farm today, and Tom went over to get a truckload of sheep poop. Since Joe wasn't in the office, I had a chance to catch up on a number of pending projects. I got the letters he had left for me to do out, got the office supply orders phoned in, got the merge forms (don't ask) he wanted installed on his computer along with the instructions on how to use them and did a how-to document for looking up court decisions online. Not bad, given how many post-holiday telephone calls I had to deal with at the same time.

On the way home I saw a chipmunk race across the road in front of me, the first I have seen this year. Peggy was complaining about them the other day, but I don't see many of them around here. Or squirrels, for that matter. Peggy says she and Rich decided to put up some squirrel feeding stations when they first bought their house, and now all the squirrels are on that side of the road. I would have thought that Tom's attempt at corn last year might have attracted them, but the raccoons clearly got to the corn first. Tom got nary an ear. Jerry's daughter Hannah took pity on us and brought some corn down from the farm. Jerry had warned Tom that the raccoons would get all the corn, so I guess they were keeping an eye out to see when to step in and help. Of course, Tom refers to the field across the road as Jerry's Restaurant because Jerry's crops seem to attract large numbers of turkeys, deer and other varmints, including the sandhill cranes.

Back home I finally washed the Vibe, and now I see that we will probably have rain tonight and tomorrow, thus muddying up the roads and meaning the car will be all splashed by the time I get to work in the morning.

The local gasoline prices stayed around $3.389 or so over the holiday, except for the stations closest to the interstate, which are always higher. They were pumping at $3.479.

Cassidy brought in a bird -- maybe a cowbird? -- and let it loose to fly around. I managed to corner it into a window ledge with a broom so I could grab it and let it go outside. Cassidy looked thoroughly disgusted and went to her post to pout. She can't figure out what we want. We aren't happy with snakes and mice that crawl, so she thought maybe something that flew would work. There's no satisfying humans!