Never a Dull Moment

As I was weaving away last night, I kept hearing a rustling and gnawing type noise. One of the three dogs was in the studio with me, but he was in a direct line of vision and doing nothing more than snoozing.

I stopped often to turn around and survey my surroundings, but nothing was amiss. I even turned off the music and the ceiling fan to cock my head to determine whether my imagination had kicked into hyper-drive.

While faint, the noise was real and contained in the room with me.

I began to wonder whether the house was haunted and whatever spirit I had disturbed was not a fan of weaving on a Saturday night.

The ever patient husband was engaged in a college football game with our alma mater participating, so I was initially loathe to interrupt him.

Several months ago, I purchased two wooden boxes from TJ Maxx and placed them atop a cabinet. I knew one of them contained several cones of natural fingering weight wool, along with half a dozen skeins of Malabrigo Rios for a blanket I hoped to make soon. All of which was a pretty hefty investment. I am referring to the yarn, not the boxes.

I knew I had something in the second box, although I could not quite remember what.

As they were standing upright, on top of the cabinet, I could not see what was in them, but I knew they were the origin of the strange sounds.

While, over the years, there has been the occasional errant hamster running amok, I had never actually seen a mouse in the house. Yet, I was convinced that was what it must be.

During a commercial break, I asked the husband to please assist me, we had a mouse!

He laughed and said: “We have dogs. There is no mouse.”

I wanted to say dogs were not cats, but he had abandoned the recliner to help me.

I pointed to the boxes. “Listen.”

Again, there was the faint, muffled crackling sound.

“Okay,” he began, “what do you want me to do.”

Moving all the way over to the door, as far from him and the boxes as I could get without leaving the room, I insisted: “Pull them down and see what’s in them.”

He did.

The first one had the four cones of fingering wool, along with the Malabrigo, as well as a handful of sawdust in one corner.

The second had a kit I had ordered last fall from Georgia Yarn Company for their Snowflake Towels. On an aside, I was wondering where I had hidden that!

Here's a shot of finished Snowflake Towels:

There was no mouse, thank goodness!

There was also no damage to the wool or threads.

Yay!

However, there were a few carpenter ants making quite a mess.

The boxes were taken outside and sprayed.

The ants were no more.

A thorough inspection of the rest of the room and the cabinet revealed no issues.

Odd, yes, but mystery solved.

My studio is not haunted.

The boxes have been cleaned and now sit stacked on their sides so I can see what is in them.

All is well.