Donna=0 Rodent Asshole=3

I hate killing things. I feel bad for days after. Except flies. No one cares about flies. Unfortunately this week, I have bigger mice to fry.

A few weeks ago I took some tarps from one place to the other, two separate times and in between places, they stayed in the back of my truck and under my closed tonneau cover.

You already know exactly where this is going right?

So a few days later, I go camping. I always keep my snacks (well most of them) in a bin in the back of truck with the cooler. It’s perfect because the tailgate is a table and everything locks up at night. The first morning when I woke up, I was super thankful that the torrential rain from the day before (when I was setting up) was over and it was sunny!

As I pull out my bin I see teenie tiny poops on the lid. COME ON….Immediately thinking of the tarps and the mouse we saw running out of the one tarp that I didn’t take in the truck. And then my brain tried to back out of the obvious and I just tried to talk myself into the mouse sneaking in because I didn’t put the cover down as tight as it should have been.

Whatever. I was wrong.

This little shit is living between my bed liner and the truck. It has been camping with me three times, to work, and all over the coast for a month now. He has shit on my stuff, eaten my paper towel, and chewed a hole in Sophie’s treat bag. I’m done with the little freeloader.

So I get a mousetrap from my dad, after the frustrating 20 minutes that follow the peanut butter application, I finally get it set up.

In the morning I have the usual trepidation of knowing that me, and only me, just killed that poor little mouse. I go outside, throw down the tailgate and I will be damned, trap still set. Food nowhere to be seen.

Mouse = 1

I decide I need a brand new trap, they are cheap and I totally don’t know what I’m doing. I buy two. Why not go in guns blazing, make the little nibbler decide what his last meal is gonna be. Choices are good, cheese…or peanut butter with a piece of cat food as icing?

Pick one sucker. He does. And he eats it all. And leaves me a crap as a thank you.

Mouse = 2

I barely touch the trap to take it out, and it snaps like an alligator. What. the. fuck.

Mouse = 3

Now I am gonna be pissed in the morning if I go out and there is no mouse. Now I am a monster. I just want it dead. This is war.

Today at work I buy another mouse trap, a plastic trap that snaps like a shark. I smother that new trap with delicious crunchy peanut butter and a delicious cat kibble. I’m gonna be pissed if it gets past this one, but I will keep trying, his luck has to run out sometime right?

And we wait…updates will be posted! Stay tuned …

Bored Puppy? A game to play to keep them stimulated so you can get stuff done…

I have just had some major life changes, to say the least. I quit my job of 5 years at the building supply store I worked at. It was just time for me to move on, I’m still not sure what I am moving on to yet, but that’s okay at this stage. I need to regroup and do something I adore.

I also got a puppy. Now I know better than anyone what this involves. It took me a long time to decide, I knew I wanted a dog and went through a few phases. At first I thought an older dog was the answer, you know save the dog that no one wants. Give her the last few years of her life some quality and love. My brother talked me out of that. He said and older dog wouldn’t keep up and I wouldn’t have them to love for long, never mind the vet bills that could possibly be involved in that.

My brother is a smart guy. So I really thought about it and weighed the facts. He wasn’t wrong. And then fate stepped in and sent me Sophie. It was love the instant I saw her. And the rest is history.

I have been off work for a little over a month now, it’s been busy, with Christmas in the mix. But now January is here I find myself flailing a little. I’m not surprised, January is always a hard month. Crap weather, the empty feeling that comes after the excitement of the holidays and the knowledge that spring is still 70 something days away.

Some days it’s just too crappy out to walk twice which has become our daily routine, and as you know if you have a pup, they get just as bored as we do. So to this I say thank goodness for Pinterest. And here is one of the things I have learned to keep the puppy crazies to a minimum, and it is so easy that you can do it right now.

My first recommendation is to use treats that are not crumbly, this is from experience. Fun yes. Messy yes. My favourite training treats are Charlee Bear treats. They don’t crumble and Sophie loves them.

Now…find three old dish towels that are fairly thin, they need to be easy to tie. Open up first dish towel and lay flat, in the first one I put the most treats as this will be in the center once you are done.

Roll that baby up…

Repeat this with the other two towels, space the treats out randomly. Once that is done stack those babies together. You can throw some treats in the center of these as you go as well.

Now tie those bad boys up like this…

Stupid easy right? And Sophie was busy for about 15 minutes trying to find all the treats! And then she needed a sleep. Win. Double freaking win.

Follow me for upcoming puppy advice and learnings, lol. There’s never a dull moment!

Happy New Year to all, and here is to a fabulous 2023!

My heart breaks…

Yesterday I lost a good friend. He was one of the first new friends I made when I moved back to the coast, he was also my landlord for the first few years I lived in my house.

We had a hard relationship, we were both strong headed and are the take no shit kinda folk. We told each other to fuck off all of the time. He was kind of like the older brother I didn’t have. I worked for him for a while, and then quit. I told him he was too mean to work for, because he was always yelling at me and telling me what to do instead of teaching me in a less obnoxious way, and I told him I still wanted to be his friend, so it was better if I quit. We had a few good laughs over that over the years.

He was also one of the most loyal people I have ever met, I knew if I ever needed him for anything, at any time, he was there for me. No matter what it would’ve been. He had my back. And the same went for me, if he needed me I was there.

Over the last two days, I have re-lived our adventures, our arguments, our personal battles that were shared, the laughter, and the love that we had for each other. I’m going to miss him like he was my family. My heart has a little crack in it now, and a part for him that will always remain no matter what I do. I’ll still look for him driving down the road and walk by his yard and look in and see if he’s home. I can still hear him calling me kiddo and giving me a hard time over whatever was happening that day. I’ll miss our random texting and our banter back and forth. I’ll miss his unpredictability and the fact that he had even less of a filter than I do. We lost a good man yesterday. Hug your friends. Tell them you love them. You honestly just never know when you won’t be able to do it again…I know he’s looking down, and still has my back, but I wish I had hugged him just one more time and told him how much he meant to me…

I love and miss you my friend and I’ll see you on the other side. Rest in peace, Paul. I love you.