September 2

We had a cord of wood delivered yesterday, and it took the better part of an hour and a half to ferry it from the pile in the driveway down to the barn for storage. It’s a shameful thing to pay to have seasoned wood delivered, when we are surrounded by forest of hard and softwood in plenty, but there’s no escaping the fact that we didn’t cut and section our own this past spring.

This cord is a good mixture of oak, maple and hickory, with sticks of ash thrown in the lot. The latter we’ll use to kindle, for ash burns hot and more rapidly than the other. It is all buttoned up well in three rows, each chin high and against the inner barn wall, where I’m certain the mouse family I displaced yesterday is already seeking another nest site within its labyrinth.

How long they’ll remain here is questionable, for there were no seed stores to be found when I dislodged the nest yesterday. I suspect the mother deer mouse used the old rug as a temporary nursery, planning to vacate the barn soon enough when the babies were just a little further along.

Likely, we’ll see and hear these same mice again in the walls and attic of our old house, when the frosts arrive that drive the winter mice indoors for comfort, unwelcome by me but appreciated by our cat, who has had to content herself all summer with watching the chipmunks and birds from within the sunroom porch.