I saved the world

I saved the world this morning.

Well, if not the world, then a Stamford train, the station and all the employees.

OK. So it's more likely that I saved a kid either lots of money replacing textbooks or the hassle of having to track down lost and found at the train station.

I boarded the train in Danbury. I got on and sat down. Across the aisle from me a younger guy got on, took off his backpack and put it on the seat along with another bag he was carrying. He was looking around, perhaps he was surprised by how empty the train was, I don't know. Everyone settled in and the hour ride to Stamford began.

People started to stand up when they announced we were approaching Stamford station. I never stand up until the train is at the station; they make those announcements too early. The kid across the row stood up, put on his backpack and started looking around again. I figured he was running late or something and was a bit agitated by it. Then, the doors opened and he walked off, leaving behind his second bag. It was a pretty bright blue University of Connecticut book bag, so it was hard to miss. I tried to get his attention as he walked through the train, but he kept walking. I picked up the bag and walked after him. I caught him on the stairs, about 30 seconds later, and tapped him on the shoulder.

"You left this on the seat." I said

He just looked at me, didn't say anything, and took the bag. Then he mumbled something and started walking away. He didn't seem happy to be reunited with his bag.

It was then that images flashed through my mind. All of the "See something, say something" posters that are plastered all over trains and train stations. It hadn't occured to me that I could be picking anything other than a bag full of books up; I was just trying to help someone out.

So there you have it. That's how I saved a kid either lots of money replacing textbooks or the hassle of having to track down lost and found at the train station.

Or perhaps I saved a train, the station and all the employees.

Nope, right there, that can be nothing else but the story of how I saved the world.

Perhaps I need to learn from these ads...

We Bought A House - Part 2

I'm told that people enjoyed We Bought A House - Part 1, so I'm encouraged to write more. Heck, a lot has been going on at the house, so I should be full of stories. Which one today, though. Ah, yes...

When we bought the house it turned out that we also bought some creatures. Some of them have been simple, yet amusing to deal with. The yellowjacket comes to mind. The mailbox is in bad shape, and has a gap big enough for things to climb in. The first time I checked the mail I noticed the yellowjacket sitting at the back of the box. By the time our mail actually started being delivered (it took USPS a while, probably because their trucks in Bethel are lame compared to other places), the yellowjacket had started making a nest. Covered neck to toe, wearing thick gloves and armed with an empty jar and a trowel because it is all we had (it was a funny sight), I scooped up the nest and left it jarred up in the sun for a few days. The yellowjacket eventually ate the nest, which was weird.

But that's not the main creature we had to deal with. The creature that came to mind has four legs and a tail. No, it isn't a fox or deer, though we have seen both of those in the yard. It isn't a dog, either, even though we were asked if we were interested in taking on the previous owner's 11-year old, incontinent, cataract-ridden dog, Lucky. We passed on that. Nope. I'm talking about mice. The fact that there were mice was not unexpected. Our property backs onto woods (bush for Australians who just can't do 'woods'), so there are all manner of critters out there.

Our first solid clue that we had mice was probably when we went to get some chocolate for dessert not long after we moved into the house. At the opened end of the chocolate were some small, but definitely noticeable, teeth marks. We looked into how to get rid of the mice. There were several steps. The first actually involved the pantry, and that was to close up any food supplies that the mouse may have. That made sense to me. If nomadic animals in Africa run out of food they move along. At least that is what National Geographical channel has taught me. If I can't find food in the pantry, I move to the fridge. Yep, that logic sounds airtight. So, we went airtight. We bought some mason jars at the local supermarket and took anything that might be remotely interesting for a mouse and sealed it up. Step 1 complete.

The second step was exclusion. This step required some thought. Eventually I came to understand what it meant: mice must be social creatures. So, I asked Liz if she wanted to go out for dinner. The key to the plan was that I didn't invite the mouse. We went on walks, still not inviting the mouse. Basically, we just excluded the mouse from every activity that we did, big or small. It didn't seem to work, because we walked into the garage to go out one day (without the mouse, of course) and Liz saw it running along the garage wall, behind an old cabinet thing. Once we were home I pulled the cabinet away from the corner to see if the mouse was still there. I didn't find a mouse, but I did find a gaping hole. A new meaning for exclusion came to mind; it turns out that exclusion just means keeping mice out in the first place! Liz was already planning a trip to Lowe's on unrelated business, so she said she would pick something up there to fill the hole. The guy at Lowe's recommended steel wool.

Why steel wool? As everyone knows when humans move into a new place they tend to exterminate whatever is already living there, and that can often lead to extinction. Around these parts, back while colonization was still slow, there were special sheep that, rather than regular wool, had steel wool. The only thing these steel wool sheep needed to worry about were humans and lightning. These sheep also didn't graze on grass; they ate mice. So, I put 2 and 2 together and realized that by shoving steel wool in the hole these mice would be reminded of their age old foe and not want to be anywhere near the house. All of that realization took place in the space of a second or so after Liz produced the steel wool from the bag, before she could explain to me that steel wool was good because the mice can't chew their way through it. But if I worked at Lowe's, I'd be giving people my reason for using steel wool for mouse exclusion. I packed the hole tight, and we looked around but didn't see any other big gaping holes that they might be coming through. We decided that we were done with exclusion.

A week or so later I was sitting in the family room, absent-mindedly watching baseball and not at all worrying about mice. Then, from behind the TV, in the shelving along the wall, I heard a noise. Several noises. It went something like "Thump. Thu-thu-thu-thu-thump." Then, rolling onto the floor, came a small mouse. It was momentarily startled by the fact that it had fallen out and rolled onto the floor. Then it saw me. Our eyes locked for what seemed like an eternity, when in reality it was probably only about 5 seconds. It was frozen. I was thinking "Damn you, you little bastard, I don't have anything to catch you in right now..." Almost as if it could read my mind the mouse set off, probably making fun of me as it went. It was time for phase 3. I know I was using "step" earlier, but phase sounds so much cooler. Phase 3 was relocation/extermination.

Phase 3 revolved around taking the mice that had already breached our perimeter and removing them. Now that we had a sighting inside the house we had somewhere to set our trap. We had picked up a no-kill trap, because neither of us really wanted to deal with dead mice. I read the instructions, put some peanut butter in the trap and set it up. The next day the trap hadn't been tripped. The day after that though the door was closed and the trap triggered. I spoke with enthusiasm to Liz about the fact that we had caught a mouse, and that I would go release it back into the food chain next to the woods. I picked up the trap, careful not to open the door and let the mouse just run free. I got all the way to the rocks at the back of the yard and lowered the trap to the ground. I opened the door, but the mouse didn't like the smell of freedom. I tilted the trap slightly, but the mouse still didn't take the hint. I tipped it all the way, but still no mouse. I looked inside, and it was empty... ghost mouse. In one of those panicked "The killer is calling from inside the house" moments, I ran back inside... Fortunately, Liz was OK.

A few days passed and still nothing found its way into the trap, not even false alarms, so we decided to move the trap for the hell of it somewhere else. The next morning the door was shut. Wary of false alarms again I told Liz about it and got ready for the day. I picked up the trap and went outside. I got to the edge of the grass in the yard and opened the door. Nothing. Not again! I tilted the trap, and then it happened. Out slid a dead mouse. I sighed. "No kill trap my ass." was my thought. I dropped the trap next to the garage door and went inside to tell Liz. We decided not to use the killing no-kill trap anymore and get something else. We set it up instead and haven't seen anything since.

So, what can we deduce from that long, pictureless and almost pointless account? There are many options:

1. The mouse that was caught and killed was the only mouse in the house. But that's probably the least likely of all of the options.

2. By following through with the 3 phases of the plan, the mice that we did have moved on when they realized there was nothing there for them. That's more likely than option 1.

3. The mice are waiting. You see, I didn't tell you the strangest part of the story. When I went into the backyard later that same day, the dead mouse was gone. Vanished. Now, I think that somewhere, either in the woods, or perhaps they've already evaded out security and are in the house, a family of mice waits. Lead by their zombie king, the mice will strike when we least suspect it. That, I believe, is the most likely option.

I have to leave it there for now. I have a battle to prep for, and supplies to gather. The zombie mouse battle could be here any day now.

We Bought A House - Part 1

You may have heard the whispers, or read the Facebook updates, or even talked to us about it. It is no secret, Liz and I have bought a house. There has been so much going on, so much to do, so much to fix, so much to enjoy (which we're starting to find out) that there hasn't been much time for telling people too much about it. Even though I haven't seen the movie, I imagine our experience has been similar to the newly released movie We Bought a Zoo, except, instead of a zoo, we bought a house.

I've decided to share some of the things we do with the place with everyone, and make a bit of a series out of it. I'm going to present the things in no particular order right now, but as time goes on it will probably get more sequential. Today's post: it happened today. The next post, perhaps it happened last week. Maybe it hasn't happened yet. Time will tell.

So, I bring to you, Part 1 of We Bought A House.

We've lived in the house now for about 3 weeks, mainly doing stuff on the inside. Each week we seem to add to the list of things to do without taking too much away from it, and looking outside, early this past week, we conceded that it had to be done. Liz was the first to actually verbalise it.

"I think we're going to have to cut the grass..."

Now, thanks to Dad always doing it and having a grass allergy, I had never mowed a lawn. Owing to the fact she has brothers, Liz had never either. But now that it's our lawn, we decided we would have to do it. Massive tufts were growing up in patches, and they needed to be dealt with. We thought about doing it after work a couple of nights, but it always got put off. Today, we woke up, dealt with some plumbers and the time had come.

Time to cut the grass.

While Liz wrapped some things up inside I headed out to the shed to see what tools there were that might help on the quest. The shed right now is a collection of the few items that we already had, and the items that the previous owners didn't need, want or bother to take with them. Opening the doors I was greeted with this view:

"Ah, yes, that should do the trick", I thought, front and center when I opened the door. "That should cut grass well."

I started working my way methodically through the yard, cutting the grass. It was long and hard work, with a lot of bending, standing, walking, repeat. I kept thinking to myself "Why the hell do Americans think it's so great to cut the grass?" Liz came out and offered to take over. Her approach was different, like she knew what to look for, like she was stalking the grass.

Deciding on a change of tactic to get the job done, Liz went to the shed in search of a new tool while I kept cutting. She came out all excited, and started swinging around a pole. It looked like she was practicing a golf swing, and whatever the tool is called, it was pretty effective.

After a while we had had enough cutting and took a break. We watched TV for half an hour (the new Avatar series is awesome) and then thought about going back to work. The thought of doing the whole yard (the property is a little less than half an acre) with those scissor things seemed daunting. Luckily, you may not have noticed in the picture of the shed, the previous owners left a lawn mower! You see, the cutting of the grass was only to bring the massive tufts down to a more manageable length. Feeling drastically relieved we turned our attention to the mower. We checked and topped up the oil, attached the grass catcher, pulled the cord and nothing. Tried again: nothing. It was like the Millennium Falcon trying to go into hyperspace in The Empire Strikes Back. It just wasn't happening. We checked the spark plug; it looked fine. Figuring it just needed some time, I kept pulling the cord.

Eureka! The engine roared to life, and the sound of our mower joined the others in the neighbourhood. I pushed it around a bit and liked the way it handled, before handing it over to Liz.

She really wanted to try it out, I swear! I'm not some horrible husband who forced his wife to mow! After a couple of back and forths I took the reins again.

Oh yeah, grass is getting cut properly now. I finished up the backyard, then moved to the side, then did the front. As I was doing the last few passes I noticed just how heavy the mower felt. "This self propelling drive thingy doesn't do that much." I thought. I let go of the self drive bar, and suddenly I could barely move the mower. "Oh, it actually does a whole lot! I'm just not in peak mowing shape yet." I realized.

Finishing up, I took the mower around to the shed, dumping out the last of our 5 or so catcher loads of grass. Looking around at the yard, that had looked so messy and unkept that morning, I became quite proud. We had just done something that many people have done countless times, but I was proud for having done it. But more than that, I was proud that this was our yard that we were working on, and that was when I understood what it means to be house proud.

And that's the story of the first time we mowed the yard.

So people are probably thinking or even saying "You've done an entire post, and made me read about you mowing the lawn, and haven't even shown me what the house looks like!" Well, the thing is the house is starting to look better and better with each passing day, as spring sets in with its sprouting of leaves. But, OK. Here it is.

This is how the house looks. At night. And out of focus.

Fine! Here it is in the day:

And here is how it looks from the back:

And here is the dust print that a bird left hitting our front window.

Can't give everything away in part 1! Stay tuned for more "exciting" stories, and perhaps even more photos, maybe even inside the house!

(Batman voiceover voice) Same bacon time*, same bacon channel!

* probably different time.