life on the homestead.

Dear Diary,

The men-folk have been gone from the homestead today as have most of the women-folk. That left Sister Annabel and I, Sister Josephine, to hold down the fort for the day. We had plenty of things to keep us busy as it was just past harvest time and the kitchen was busy with food preparations and our lodgings were getting put back into shape. Directly following a hearty breakfast of mush and fresh milk from our cow, Soy, we got straight away to work. Sister Annabel had to hitch up the team of oxen to go into town to get our mail from the neighboring town of Fish Camp and I straight away got to work on sweeping and mopping up the floors where the vitals are eaten. I left open the door to let more warm sunshine in and soak up the warm autumn sun. The door was open for most of the morning. Right before Sister Annabel and I stopped for the mid-afternoon meal I heard a very loud commotion coming from near the door in our kitchen. Thinking perhaps it was the men-folk coming back I called out a warm greeting to them. However diary, it was not them, not wanting to get alarmed I looked over and what greeted my eyes was a squirrel, a little critter was trapped to a sticky varmint pad. Without wanting to raise to much alarm I called out to Sister Annabel using our new-fangled calling contraptions. Then I skedaddled out of there to see what we should do.

Sister Annabel and I both decided we could not be the ones to put it out of its misery. However we were left alone to fend for ourselves at the homestead! We put in a call to our nearest neighbor only to find out he was with our boss in the far away town of Fresno. That really did leave us to ourselves to defend the homestead, Sister Annabel and Sister Josephine would have to do it themselves. They would have to be the ones to remove the violator from the sticky mouse pad or die trying.

Many supplies were gotten to prevent ourselves from falling victim to an angry bite, long blue gloves, a towel, a gray plastic tub, a trash can, a plastic trash bag, a large broom, and an apple box. Without meaning to many tears of fear and sorrow were shed for the for the tiny critter, he was just so scart and sad looking.

Well, diary, eventually we covered him with the towel, scooted him over onto the floor mat, covered him with a trash can lid and pulled the mat outside. It's fair to note that Sister Annabel was only watching and encouraging but had nothing to do with the actual helping me, even though I was clearly distressed and had tears on my face from the fear and hurt of the poor little critter. Once the mess was outside we debated on what to do next. We tried covering the sticky parts with the towel and pushing him off with the broom but that was getting us no where. My heart was breaking, I didn't want to be the one doing this. For the first time in my life I truly wish the men-folk were near by to help me, in spite of that, they were no where near. The little squirrel was still fighting strong and attacking the innocent broom and we were getting no where with the whole situation. Eventually Sister Annabel decided to search out the book of google and see how others have dealt with a situation like this.

The answer was oil, cooking oil. I set off at once to find it and once I did I proceeded to pour it out on the hopeless situation and it instantly turned the situation for the better. He was free faster than you can say apple pie. He was now a free squirrel, covered in cooking oil.

My heart was racing and my mind was the same consistency of my breakfast mush and I needed a break. The morning had taught me several things, one never leave that dog-gone door open and never let all the men-folk leave us women-folk to tend to the homestead alone.

*for Sister Annabel's take on the whole situation with photo's click HERE