Sunday, November 9, 2008

The Flower Pot and the Screaming Lady.

I was reminded this morning of a story that just needs to be told. First a little info to set the story.

I live in an apartment and like to grow flowers on my front porch. Most of the flowers I grow are annuals that I replace each year when the weather warms up in the spring. Since I don't have a lot of spare storage space inside I have to leave the pots outside once the flowers have died back. I usually clean out the dead stuff and push the pots close to the building, some stacked, some not.

Well last winter I did just as described above, and after about a week I noticed one of the pots, a long narrow planter has something that had dug in the dirt and made a mound. I didn't think much about this mound of dirt other than the fact that the digging had been so meticulous that no dirt had been kicked out on the cement porch. I thought to myself that who ever had done the digging had been really nice and not made a mess at least!

I tried to figure out what had been digging and decided that it must have been the squirrels burying a nut for "storage". After "figuring" that out, I didn't think ponder on it any longer.


This is the planter I'm writing about


Well the first semi-warm day the next spring I was getting ready to do some clean-up to prepare for new flowers. Instead to reaching down to pick up the pot I used my foot to scoot the pot over so I could work sitting down in my chair. Well, I had a surprise that nearly set me back a couple of years.

All of a sudden when I moved the pot out of the dirt came a mouse! I think it was more surprised than I, if that's possible. He jumped out and nearly climbed the wall! While I was hollering, then laughing, that poor mouse did what they usually do and tried run as far away from the shrieking lady as possible.

I felt so sorry that I had roused this poor mouse out of it's winter home that I just pushed the pot back up against the wall and left it for the rest of the month. I don't know if he ever moved back in, I kind of doubt it though because he probably decided that it wasn't worth coming back to a nest that moved around and had some lady bothering it.

8 comments:

Patty said...

Ha!Ha!Ha!, now that is a funny story. Myself, I would ahve probably peed myself when that mouse popped out. Thanks for the chuckle.

I noticed you stopped by my blog, You need to come back and click, there is a beautiful slide show. I guess I didn't word it correctly, the ones that have stopped by, thought the click would make it glitter. But it was to see the slide show.

Rottlady of the Ozarks said...

Thanks for the hint. As for the reaction I had when seeing the mouse, I thought I should leave that part out....but now that you bring it up. I DID! Well almost anyway.

Twisted Fencepost said...

You probably weren't the only one peeing. He probably peed his fur all the way up the house.
And wether he came back or not depends on how cold he got.

Rottlady of the Ozarks said...

You can be sure when I went to clean it out again I used a broom and knocked it a few times first!

I'm sure it smelled like fear around there for quite a while!

Marvin said...

LOL I gotta admit I would have done some jumping, fast moving and , maybe, even a little scream in the same situation. Surprises like that are impossible to experience calmly.

Out here in the boonies, we often find mice in the strangest -- and usually unwanted -- places.

Rottlady of the Ozarks said...

Well I can thank you for reminding me about this experience. It was your story about the Field Rat that made me remember it.

Yeah, being here in the city it's just not something you think about until it happens. But you can bet I will next spring!

Pat - Arkansas said...

Cute story. I'd have jumped and screamed, too!

CINDY BUCKLEY said...

I definitely would have been screaming! This morning I stepped on a plastic spider left from Halloween and about had a coronary!

Thanks for visiting my blog! I am enjoying catching up with your older posts here.