It has been an exhausting weekend for us here on the Range. With the onset of colder weather, we have been struggling to repel a veritable onslaught of unwelcome visitors. (There were at least two or three of them.)
Convinced my clutter was giving them hiding places, I have been tackling the stacks of boxes of children's clothing. I'm up to 2T. I also took preemptive action with some of our as yet untouched cupboards, consolidating bags of supplies into plastic or glass containers. (Somehow, I managed to hit enough sales recently to have more than 20 pounds of sugar in the cupboard. Hmmm...guess that's not going on the list for a while!)
Kansas Dad, of course, has been taking more direct action with just about every kind of trap you can buy and trying to close up all the little holes he could find (which should have the additional benefit of decreasing our heating bill). In the wee hours of the morning, he actually hunted one down, cornered it and clubbed it to death. It's not so often in today's world a man can physically club a "wild" animal to death to protect his family. I am being absolutely serious when I say he is my hero.
We've been staying up late, cleaning everything over and over, washing our hands hundreds of times a day and generally being displeased as we could hear them here and there. I'm hopeful the worst is over, though we are considering building a cat shelter this week so we can have our own little army. (Curse that cat allergy Kansas Dad developed!)