getting my ducks in a row

You over there, move to the left, please.  Nope, that's too far.  Move back a little to the right.  And you, You move to the right, too.  Just a smidge. Yup, yup, that's it.  WAIT, WAIT A MINUTE!  I didn't tell YOU to move.  You stay where you are.  You too.  You stay right there. No, no that's far enough. Keep still, would you? EVERYBODY STAY RIGHT WHERE THEY ARE!  NO ONE MOVE!  Okay, let's start all over again.  You, you over there.  You move just a smidge to the left.  Nope, that's too far...

What's that, Peepers?  What am I doing?  It's it obvious?  I'm getting my ducks in a row.

At least I'm trying to get my ducks in a row.  Gosh, this is harder than herding cats, for sure.

Peepers, you have any hints for getting these ducks to...

STOP THAT!  STOP MOVING ABOUT!  STAY RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE!

Oh Peepers, I could do with some help here...

I should have used rubber duckies.  Bet they would have stayed put and not been milling about like...

I said, STAY RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE!!!

What are you babbling about, Peepers?  Oh.  Really?  Are you sure about that?  REALLY?  Hmmm...

NOW she tells me.

Long story short, I have been informed that putting my ducks in a row does not actually involve the use of live ducks.  MOUSES!

Doesn't involve the use of rubber duckies, either.  MOUSES!

I didn't know why they all had to be in a row, anyway.  It didn't make any sense to me, at all.  Now geese, I could see.  I see geese flying in rows all the time.  Flying high up in the air in two rows, converging in a letter 'v.'  Yup, perhaps that old saying should have been about putting one's geese in a V.  MOUSES!

But speaking of geese, the Canada Geese will be flying over my house any day now.  It's true! They fly south for the winter, you see, and my house appears to be on an international flight path of sorts. Every fall, those geese fly right over me and my house.  And you know when they're doing a flyby because they honk up a storm.  Why, they honk like a bunch of irate drivers in a traffic jam. MOUSES!


But like I said, although I haven't yet seen those geese this season, I'm sure I will soon because you all know what today is, right?  It's the first day of Autumn.  That means it's time for the geese to start their journey, southward bound.

I've never actually met a goose.  Don't know why. Maybe my yard isn't suitable for landing or something.  Hmmm....

Anyway, autumn is here now.  It arrived today although it felt like it arrived two days ago.  Last weekend was hot and muggy and sticky-icky.  Just like summer, in fact.  But then all of a sudden, everything got a little chilly and the humidity left us behind.  Leaves haven't started changing colour yet but the other night, the peeps had to put the heat on. Could you believe it?  One day they have fans running and the next, the furnace.  MOUSES!

Another word for autumn, of course, is fall.  Fall...  The season of falling stuff.  It's true!  Leaves fall as do acorns and guess what?  They fall in the fall.  Coincidence?  I think not.  Only thing I don't know is which came first.  Was it the chicken or the egg...  Oops!  Sorry.  Wrong saying.  I meant to say, was it the season or the act.  Do the leaves fall in the fall because they think they should fall in the season called fall OR is the season called fall because the leaves and other falling stuff fall?

One will never know, I suppose, as the leaves aren't really talking although truth be told, they do rustle a lot and the wind is always whispering secrets and stuff.  I bet you anything those darned squirrels know a secret or two.  Bet those squirrels know the secrets of the leaves and all. MOUSES!

Squirrels love fall.  Ever notice that?  It's true.  You should see those big grey ones scampering up and down the big old oak tree at the end of my driveway.  They're looking for acorns, you see. Stashing them away for the winter.

Did you know that squirrels are the most forgetful of all rodents?  At least, that's what I've observed. I watch the squirrels living around here, a lot, and while I've been watching, I have discovered that they're always forgetting stuff.  Mainly, they forget where they stashed their acorns, you see.

It's true.  Every fall those squirrels stash their acorns all over my yard, in little bundles, and then Peep #1 finds little oak trees growing, in following years.  She knows they were planted by squirrels on account of their appearance in bundles and clumps.  A clump of oak trees here and another clump there.  Drives the peep crazy, for sure.  Crazier than a squirrel making nut pies kind of crazy, if you know what I mean.

Not that my peep actually needs to be driven crazy.  Believe-you-me, she already knows that road like the back of her hand.  MOUSES!

But I bet the forgetting of where they put their nuts drives the squirrels crazy, too.  Nothing worse than not remembering where you hid something.  Not being able to find it.  Mouses that can be frustrating.  So frustrating it will drive you to frustration, for sure.

I remember that time I couldn't find my favourite nip mouse after hiding it from my fur-sibs...

To tell you the truth, I STILL remember not being able to find my favourite nip mouse like it was just yesterday.  Not yesterday when I lost it but yesterday when it was still lost.  By gosh and golly, my favourite nip mouse is still no where to be found!

I sure do hope Peep #1 didn't throw it out because one of my fur-sibs peed on it or something. MOUSES!

But back to those forgetful squirrels.  Do you know what they should do?  They should plant their acorns all in a row.  Then they would easily find the darned things when they went looking for them, later on.

And I'm betting that putting one's acorns in a row would be a heck of a lot easier than getting those ducks to line up like......

OH MY MOUSES!  I totally forgot all about those ducks.  Peepers is going to be furious, for sure.  I know she said I didn't actually need to get them to stand in a row but I'm betting she didn't want them waddling all over the place and...

Hmmm...  If I spin this just right, I'm thinking I can get the peep to take the blame on this one.   After all, she IS the one who told me I didn't need to line them all up so really, if they are ducks waddling all over the place, it really is on her.  Yup, it's all on her, for sure. MOUSES!

stuff falls

As many of you know, up here in the northern hemisphere, yesterday was the autumnal equinox, otherwise known as the first day of autumn.

Equinoxes...  Hmmm... Equinoxi?  I had better check that out.

Equinoxes occur twice a year; once in March and once in September.  They occur when the length of the days and the nights are approximately of equal duration.

Did you know that an equinox is actually just a moment in time and not a whole day?  It's true. What's more, that moment in time is different for different places on Earth.

For example, even though the calender on my office wall says that the autumnal equinox was yesterday, it really wasn't.  Nope.  The autumnal equinox occurred at 11:29pm ADT the night before, in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  I live to the north and west of Halifax so the autumnal equinox was actually a little different at my house.

Seville is currently workin' on the calculations of the exact time - to the nanosecond - of the recent autumnal equinox, at our location, as I type this.  The fur is flyin' over there where he's workin'. Apparently, the equinoxiatal time differential of the actual equinox and the date that is marked on the calendar has opened a microscopic time vortex on my office wall, right next to the calendar.  At least that's what Sivvers says.  Personally, I think he was messin' about with whisks again.  MOUSES!

The math is pretty complicated but I think my brother can figure it out.  If not, it's okay.  I actually know the exact moment the equinox occurred.  It was the moment my sister, Mason, knocked that book off the armoire, late Monday night.

Well...  Mason took the blame for the event but in fact, the fallin' book was beyond her control.  That book fell at the very instant when summer said, "See ya later!" and fall announced it's appearance. In other words, the autumnal equinox.

Good thing I recorded the timin' of the fallin' of that book.  If Seville can't calculate the timin' of the equinox himself, I'll give him my data.  He's gonna need it.  Stuff like this is very important when workin' on eggbeater-whisk time travellin'-teleportation technology, you see.  Plus, we've just gotta close that open time vortex.  If left unchecked, they grow and can cause real problems with all sorts of stuff.

But my post today isn't about math or time travellin' or even time for that matter.  Rather, my post is about fall.  Well about stuff fallin'.  I think that's why we call autumn, fall.  It's the time when stuff falls. MOUSES!

Ever notice how much stuff falls in the fall?  Tonnes of things fall.  Literally, tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of things fall.  If you gathered up all the leaves that fall right here in Nova Scotia, every fall, and weighed 'em, they'd weigh a whole lot of tonnes.  Or would that be their mass?  Hmmm... Doesn't really matter for the purpose of this post.

Point is, stuff falls.  Stuff falls in the fall. MOUSES!

The leaves on the trees haven't started fallin' here yet.  My pictures were taken in a previous year but I wanted to set the mood.  As of today, the leaves have barely begun colourin' up!  But before we know it, they'll be changin' to brilliant shades of orange, yellow and red and paintin' the landscape with their beauty. Then they'll fall.  Happens every year.

And it's not just leaves.  Acorns fall, too. More on that in a future post but suffice it to say, don't nap under oak trees in the fall.  Not a good idea.  Not a good idea at all.  Again I must say, MOUSES!

So we've got the leaves fallin' gently, never once producin' any sort of head injury, and then we've got the acorns fallin' like demented nutty weapons of maddening squirrels and...

I just thought of somethin'.  Thank goodness we don't have any horse chestnut trees growin' around here.  Imagine bein' conked on the ol' noggin' with conkers!  Interestin'...  Wonder if that's why they're called conkers in the first place.  Just glad we don't have 'em.  I suspect they'd be even worse than takin' an acorn to the top of the head.

Anywho...  We've got leaves and acorns fallin' outside but indoors, things fall, too.

I gave you the example of the book that fell from the armoire the other night.  That was the first item of many that will fall, this fall.  It's true.

With the onset of autumn, the days will get cooler and the nights sometimes downright chilly.  Those cooler temperatures tend to bring us cats indoors a lot more.  Oh sure, we'll still spend plenty of time frolickin' in the great outdoors.  There will be leaves to chase and acorns to bat around on the driveway and whatnot.  On sunny days, the sun will still warm our fur and heat up our favourite outdoor nappin' spots but as the ol' mercury dips lower, we cats will be inclined to spend more and more time inside.

The more time we cats spend indoors, the more likely a little indoor mischief makin' will occur.  For instance, things formerly put safely up out of reach in places like the tops of armoires will suddenly become within reach as the tops of the armoires become indoor nappin' spots.  They're great for bathin', too, by the way.

Now you get a cat up there on top of an armoire, havin' a full bath, when peeps have so carelessly left stuff on top of that very same armoire, and somethin' has gotta give.  Not gonna be the cat, either.  In other words, anythin' left on top of the armoire in the family room is now fair game for knockin' off said armoire.  Perhaps by accident; perhaps on purpose.  Doesn't really matter.  Fall is the time when stuff falls.  Therefore, stuff left on the tops of armoires is gonna fall.

And the fallin' of stuff in fall is certainly not restricted to things left on the tops of armoires.  It applies to tables of all sorts and sizes, as well.  Actually, any flat surface that looks suitable for a catnap is likely to have a cat, who is spendin' more time indoors due to the cooler weather, jump up upon it. After all, we have to have places to nap!

Any items carelessly left on the tops of these flat surfaces may end up fallin'.  Did I say may?  Any items carelessly left on the tops of these flat surfaces will end up fallin'.  They might be bumped into and accidentally knocked down or they may be pushed out of the way 'cause they're occupyin' prime nappin' space and therefore plummet to the earth...  ummm...  floor.  Point is, they're gonna fall.

So a little warnin' to all the peeps out there readin' this here post.  Fall has arrived and stuff is gonna start fallin'.  Likely already has.  Best you not leave breakables on flat surfaces durin' this season of fallin'.

And a little warnin' to all the cats out there readin' this here post.  Fall has arrived and stuff is gonna start fallin'.  Likely already has.  Best you not nap on the floor next to pieces of furniture with flat surfaces.  You never know what might end up fallin' and landin' on your head.  Take for example, a book that just happened to fall from the armoire, in my family room, at the exact moment in time when the autumnal equinox occurred, this year, at my house.

Hey Sivvers!  How are those calculations comin' along?  That bad, huh?  Nope, I can't publish that. Seriously dude, can't do it.  Nerissa's Life is a family-friendly blog and whatnot.  MOUSES!