Wild day!

I woke up this morning so happy that sunbeams and rainbows radiated from my body. I don't know why. Iceland? 

I checked the mouse trap outside before making breakfast AND .... CAUGHT ONE!! 

In the last home invasion Hercules Mouse broke every single plastic humane trap in my house and then the mice had a conference, with PowerPoint, and explained to everyone what the traps were and to avoid them. My metal humane traps caught NO ONE despite having the most delectable, incredible, top-notch bait a mouse could want. 

The mice under my HVAC did not attend the conference. 

I looked in, saw no one was there, and then moved it a bit, and saw someone WAS there! Someone was very cute with gigantic eyes. Seriously. 

They just put asphalt on our road so I couldn't drive my car. I had to use Karen's, safely parked in the synagogue parking lot. 

Now, here is where I'm hoping you'll make some wishes. Wish for patience for Kate, wish for sense for me so I'm not such a ditz that I completely irritate her in Iceland.

I remembered that you have to put a key in a hole. So I got that right. But there is no hole on the passenger side, the side I was trying to open to put the mouse in. 

Ok, fine. 

Also, the seat doesn't automatically adjust how you like it, you actually have to move the seats. 

And the final thing, when you walk away from her car, it does not automatically lock itself. You have to remember to do all these things!

Someone was terrified. Someone was so terrified that when we got to the park someone refused to leave the trap. Again, seriously. Hid in one of the intake chutes. 

I went for a walk. The sun was glorious. The temperature was perfect. I saw deer. I came back.

The mouse was hiding in the intake chute. 

I left the trap in the park. I put a tree limb across the opening so the door wouldn't accidentally get shut .... uh .... trapping the mouse. 

I went home. I fed the birds. I walked Sam. I saw this crow in the extra. Then in the park I saw a heron flying. 

After work I picked up the trap and fortunately the mouse was gone. I don't know what I would have done if the mouse were still in the trap. Taken him back home? Gone to the store and bought him a doll house? Set up GrubHub app so he could order food? 

Tonight we have two metal humane traps out there and I found, under my hydrangea, the BIGGEST SLUG I've seen other than a banana slug!!!!

OMG

In the park on the bridge over the deck there was a small Ukrainian flag. 

The US gave Ukraine M777 howitzers. They are "ultralight" but still weigh 4.2 tons. It takes 2-3 minutes to change location. It takes 8 people, minimum. The timing matters because it determines how quickly it can be relocated. The Ukrainians figured out how to do it in 80 seconds. 

It will be a tough winter in Europe, but Germany is ahead of schedule in filling underground gas storage. This is thanks to Norway, the Netherlands, other countries, falling demand amidst soaring prices, and businesses switching to other fuels. 

Today Ukrainian air forces shot down a Russian recon drone named "Kartograf." It is supposedly a secret spy drone but it doesn't seem to be a very good secret. 

Russia hired mercenaries. Then they began recruiting prisoners. Now they are recruiting homeless people.  Putin signed a well-publicized order calling for the armed forces to increase its number of combat personnel by 137,000. Hasn't happened. 

"It legitimately takes a long time to form a good soldier, and it takes even longer to take a bunch of good soldiers and put them into a unit, exercise them, have them go out and successfully accomplish tactical tasks on the battlefield," George Barros, an analyst for the Institute of the Study of War explained. "Because of the very high attrition rates that the Russian officer corps has suffered in Ukraine, it's going to take a generation to retrain the kind of military leadership that's necessary to effectively coordinate all of these moving pieces."

Russia is running low on its better quality munitions and is beginning to conserve them. They thought they'd be done in days. They went for shock and awe and used them indiscriminately. It has been over six months. 

A Russian state TV host said that, because of the help the west is giving Ukraine, total victory may not be possible. 

Ukraine destroyed a Russian ammunition depot in Kherson and 10 armored vehicles. 

An Englishman whose father was Ukrainian gave a truck full of humanitarian aid supplies to Ukrainian troops.The supplies were collected by volunteers.

On Thursday hackers broke into a popular ridesharing app and ordered dozens of drivers to the same address in central Moscow and caused a massive traffic jam. That is a wicked hack.