It's A Beautiful Day

Yesterday: Head spinning, so near exhaustion I dread writing an email, I decide I cannot work this week and tell the boss I'm taking the week off.
Today: Greet HVAC repair guy who arrives at the door two hours early and fixes the issue in 20 minutes.
Dress and equip for mushroom hunt; after fruitless hunting, shower and dress.
Drive townward for a car emissions test.
While waiting, walk a block and get a hamburger. Using their WiFi, I find two pleasing work-related emails and send an email requesting a check, and am assured that it is being sent today.
Buy vivid green blocks of rodent poison, the large bag of them, not the small.
It's May 15, the frost-free day for Zone 6, so I select three baby plants, two basil, one rosemary, and tell them, "You are so lucky. You will be loved."
Buy new windshield wipers, amazed to hear that nowadays they are sold singly, the drivers' side wiper longer and costlier than the passenger side.
Return DVDs Steve Jobs, Fahrenheit 451, and Dallas Buyers Club to the library, four weeks late because it took me that long to watch them all.
Buy a jar of Noxzema and two bags of ground coffee.
Pharmacy pickup.
Drop recyclables into a UPS box.
Obtain cash at ATM.
Pick up dry-cleaned winter coat, costing most of the cash.
Get a drive-through car wash.
Buy a dozen lovely brown fresh local eggs at the feed store where I have been served by the same guy for 20 years.
Buy fruit and vegetables at House Springs. Golden Delicious are the best apples. I did not believe that when I first heard it, because Red Delicious are so cloying. A beautiful drive on a day all wildly blue and green.
At home, inspect the bluebird box in the meadow. All of the chickadees have fledged. Removed their nest and cleaned the box for the next occupants.
Process newly bought fruit and vegetables for the fridge and freezer.
Dinner: Cream of asparagus soup, slice of black-olive bread, fresh corn on the cob.
Assemble all required papers and finish online the two-year car license registration, ordering the special "Don't Tread on Me" snake design I have always liked.
Good Lord, it's 9 p.m.

How to Buy and Empty a 50-lb. Bag of Birdseed Without Ever Lifting It

1. Locate a farm and home store or a feedstore selling a 50-lb. bag of birdseed for $16.99 or less.
2. Tell the checkout clerk you want to buy a 50-lb. bag of birdseed but cannot lift it. (Whether that's true is up to you.) Pay for it.
3. The clerk summons a fellow employee able to lift the bag and bring it curbside while you get your car.
4. Have the lifter place the 50-lb. bag not in the car's trunk, but in the back seat. (Previous experience has taught you that if it's placed in the trunk, you cannot for the life of ya lift it out.)
5. At home, lay down some newspaper or cardboard on the ground alongside of the back car door.
6. Open the back car door and tug the bag until it's horizontal and its top lies just a few inches outside the doorframe. Have your containers ready.
7. Pinching the bag just below the top of one corner, cut the corner above your hand with a razor or scissors so the cut is 2 inches wide, forming a spout. A two-inch cut lets the birdfeed flow out at a controllable rate.
8. Place your first and largest container beneath the "spout." Tug, jiggle, and massage the bag until birdseed pours into the container. Continue until the container is full.
9. When the container is full, close the bag, set it upright and get your second empty container.
10. Re-open the bag and repeat with other containers until the bag is empty.
If any birdseed has been spilled, it probably fell on the newspaper or cardboard. Pick that up and pour the spilled birdfeed into the container. Now there's no waste and no treats for mice.
Source: Years of experience at trying everything but this.

Times of the Signs, Part 3

Nothing heartens me like the sign "Live Bait," and the Eureka Feed Station has that sign up all year. Another sign too, seasonal, mentions Christmas; the only one like it in town! Divine purchases there include birdseed by the sack, bales of straw, cases of suet, deerskin leather work gloves (8 years and grubby-lookin but still good!), mousetraps and poison, salt blocks, tools & fishing license. Run by a father and son. Used to be closed on Sunday and Monday also. One time Demetrius left his wallet on the counter on a Saturday and it was in the same place when he returned on Tuesday. The Feed Station now, somewhat reluctantly, has Sunday hours. Posted on the door:

Sunday:
8:30-10 Church
Open 11 a.m. - 3 p.m.