Here’s what has been happening

Decrepit silo and barn

It isn’t often that I can get both a rundown barn and silo in the same shot. I came across this duo on the way home from one of my granddaughter’s baseball games recently.

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Life hasn’t been all dreary, humdrum days and nights in my personal life lately. It seldom is. But then, I try to look for things to amuse me. You’ll probably think that I’m easily amused when you read the following.

I know that many of us are addicted to our smart phones. I know that I spend too much time staring at the screen as I scroll through the twitter feeds that I follow, or check out the Instagram postings, or read my email, or even play solitaire. So far, however, I have not started texting or taking calls as I drive or walk around town.

A few days ago I was driving home from the library and saw a young man in a wheelchair who was crossing a reasonably busy intersection. He was slightly more than half way across when he stopped and answered his phone. He sat there talking rather than first reaching the safety of the sidewalk. I hope that it was a very important call.

***

I had an exciting afternoon late last week. I happened to look out of a second floor window that overlooks our pool. It appeared that the pump wasn’t causing the water to circulate. That was odd. Now I hadn’t looked at the pool for a couple of days so I decided that I needed to investigate what the problem might be.

Once I arrived at the pool the problem was immediately apparent. Something was blocking the entrance to the skimmer. A closer inspection revealed that the blockage was a drowned squirrel. Oh my.

Over the years I have had to remove a few dead birds from the skimmer basket, but this squirrel was too big to even get into the basket. I was going to have to reach into the pool and lift it out. That was not something I wanted to do. But it was my duty. I could have used the net we use to fish out leaves and twigs, but I knew that if I did so I would not be able to resist the temptation to then fling the squirrel over the fence into out neighbor’s back yard. I like them too much to do that. So I went inside and fetched two plastic bags that I had planned on recycling. I put my right , dominant, hand in one bag and used it to reach into the pool to firmly grasp the waterlogged tail and deposit the squirrel in the other bag. Both bags went into the trash bin.

When I told Cindy about my adventure she asked me if I knew how long he had been in the pool. I told her that I didn’t know that it was a he because I didn’t take time to inspected the slightly bloated body for that type information, and what is more, I didn’t close the staring eyes.

***

Finally, yesterday a dead man called my phone. I was too late getting to the phone before it went to voicemail. It must not have been an important call, because there was no message.

I didn’t recognize the caller’s number, so how do I know it was a dead man? The Internet told me so. I Googled the phone number and it told me that the number belonged to a man who lived in an adjoining county. Not recognizing the name, I performed a further Google and came across an obituary for the man which dated back to 2003. Perhaps he had a son with the same name? He did! But it appears that the son died in 2010. So, one way or the other, I was called by a dead man who was too busy to leave me a voicemail message. I wonder if perhaps he realized that he had reached the wrong number.