Shoo!

No one likes to be wet for too long -- expect a fish. We're now on our fifth day of rain, and it's getting really, really old. The sogginess has turned the ground that is not underwater into one massive, muddy sponge that oozes up around each footstep and threatens to swallow my shoes.

It must be the rain. Everyone is a little kooky today, including the animals. We've chased various animals out of places they don't belong.

There is a garage attached to the lower house. After school today I was going from the lower to the upper house, edging my way along the covered walkway to miss as much of the rain as possible, and as I passed the garage, I noticed that the small door was ajar. I paused at the door and heard scratching and pecking in the bags of hazelnut shells stored in the garage. I opened the door wider to see who was into the shells. One of the large roosters stood on top of a bag. He had pecked a hole in the bottom of it and had made a huge mess pulling shells out with his beak looking for leftover nuts. When I stepped into the room, he looked up at me with his fierce eyes (roosters would certainly eat us all if they were big enough). I walked around behind him, shooed him out, and pulled the door closed.

About an hour later I walked back down to the lower house, and when I walked past the garage this time, I heard snorting and oinking reverberating off the cement walls. The door was again ajar. I peeked in to see two pigs trotting around in circles. Again I stepped inside the room, walked around behind them to herd them toward the door, and shooed them out. 

Later on, I was in the kitchen tending to the loaves of bread rotating from the stove-top to the oven compartment in the wood stove. Suddenly, I heard clattering and scratching inside one of the cupboards. I opened the door, and there was Kitten, marching around the stacks of plates. His bright orange eyes and pointy ears froze as he hovered, mid-step when I told him to get out. I think he thought that if he didn't move, I wouldn't see him..... a behavior that works when "Our Grandmother" chases him. But I can see just fine, so I scooped him up, pulled him out of the cupboard, and shut the doors.

The two pigs that I had chased out of the garage had gone looking for another open door that would offer shelter from the rain. They must have found the door to one of the sheds out back partly open. From inside the house, we all heard a crash and breaking glass. Koba and Tea ran out to see what was going on in the shed. Some of the chickens, the duck, the turkeys, and the dog had followed the pigs lead; so two seconds after Koba disappeared into the dark room, roaring at the wayward animals, a menagerie of fur, feathers, flapping, and squealing came pouring out the door. The pigs had knocked over some jars of stewed fruit and wine. They broke several 5-liter-jars of wine and cracked one filled with stewed fruit. The next hour was spent in clean-up and salvage mode.

If this rain doesn't stop soon, we are all going to go crazy.... Next we'll be shooing the buffalo out of the outhouse.