not only did i throw this face out into the fresh snow today, i placed an order for poison also. things are getting out of hand and i have reached the limits of my lenience and sympathy. i wish there was another way, because even the blue oats won't solve the problem of sleep deprivation soon enough. i still have to listen to them running about inside the walls and the cupboard, eating the bait and dying, even. an ultrasound device to deter them from entering altogether sounds good, but apparently they don't work unless the frequency is such that even humans have trouble being in the same space. with my hypersensitive ears, not a tempter...

so, i am still in a foul mood, and glad to see november go. this whole year has been a disaster, so lets just get it over and done with, shall we, december? not that i have anything to look forward to in 2013. i don't even like the numbers in it, all white and yellow and orange... like a fried egg. that's what it looks like in my mind.

the day has been a flurry of snow, finally, but somehow bleak and dark, almost like living inside a giant vacuum cleaner's dust bag. the wind comes from the east, which is so rare the trees look all wrong, bent in an odd direction. i don't think i will do anything for the rest of the day besides sulk and eat peanut butter fudge.

we have another winner, a trip to the woods richer. and two more mice, at least, in the house already... i'm starting to sense a problem. in short, i can't sleep and their using my loaf pan as a toilet is not cool. what do i do?

this is where i have left the two, a sheltered spot with lots of nooks to hide in, and plenty of food sources. i wish they would all go there on their own. i can't bring myself to take the blue oats approach, but i doubt i can ever house-train them either.

my new housemates are yellow-necked mice (apodemus flavicollis) and as far as i can tell, they are a little larger than the wood mice we had in ireland, and they seem to be most active after midnight for a couple of hours and again from about five to seven in the morning. maybe they spend the time in between outdoors telling their friends to come check out the big, warm, cat-free house, i don't know...

what i do know is that my heart will break if i have to start killing them, and i'm depressed enough as it is. daylight lasts about a blink and i'm usually asleep when it occurs. most of it is shrouded in clouds anyway. i have no energy even for the simplest of things, let alone for figuring out what to do with my life. i can't really blame it on the darkness, though. this has been going on for years.

it's a vicious circle of hormonal imbalance. thyroid problems run in the family, but my tests always come out within the norm, therefore i am well despite my symptoms. proper doctors and treatments cost proper money that i'm not well enough to make. i know i should eat a certain way and exercise much more to even give myself a chance, but most of the time i'm just too tired to give a damn, and so it goes. to be regarded as a lazy, whiny person is, of course, always a bonus.

i am crumbling under the expectations to be normal, and to make matters worse, i'm not even abnormal in a generally approved manner. life for me is a dead end that somehow keeps on going, being alive is not at all the same as living. i yearn to be a part of something but i can't connect. i don't like people, not really. i try to, but things always go wrong one way or another. and even with friends i feel like i have to pretend so much it just leaves me exhausted and empty afterwards.

i read of a woman who thinks she is married to the eiffel tower, and while i think she's deranged, i also understand the appeal. if i could have my dream house, i'd be complete. i could just be inside, surrounded by beauty and balance, and need nothing more. were the house located between a forest and an ocean, it would be paradise. i will never have that, because i lack the can-do spirit that takes people from rags to riches and luck evades me, too.

this blog is also nearing its end. i am running out of picture storage and, frankly, the mushrooms look pretty much the same every year... rather than start deleting from the beginning, i want to keep the record this time. lots of things are coming to a close lately, it seems, and i admit i sort of envy them for it. but i'll keep on posting and pointing until i'm out of space...

for a week i had this little visitor running about in the house. clearly, she'd never heard of the term 'as quiet as a mouse' and i was awake most nights, or early mornings, rather. i tried to lure her with apples and peanut butter in vain, but it was popcorn that did the trick. today was the day of relocation, far, far into the woods.

she ate my special apple seeds and half of the honey melon ones, drying on the kitchen table. yet i kind of miss the mouse already. it was nice having someone around. i wouldn't mind if it weren't for the peeing and pooing and gnawing... but apparently, there is no negotiating with mice.

surely i won't be lonesome for long, this being a record year of them critters, or so i hear.

today i found some more cinder conk, a wee little morsel peeking out of a birch tree...

...and then thought to myself: "oh yeah, happy birthday to me"...

...and sat on the quay with turquoise hems fluttering

watching the seafoam picture show...

...with pinecones in pocket...

...as the sun shone brightly into my eyes from where it still manages to climb up to.

doesn't that tuft of fungi above look like candy? they were still so small i couldn't be a 100% sure whether they were growing up to be edible or not, so i left them, but soon found some good ones for soup, called hypholoma capnoides or conifer tuft. i was a little confused at first, because for years they have grown abundantly on the same spruce stumps, which are showing no signs as of yet, but the mushrooms now grow seemingly on the ground, likely on the remains of roots, scattered around the woodland. so when i got home i checked and checked, even though i am very familiar with them. that's mushrooms for you. always a bit mysterious.

it had been a while since my last foraging trip, i'm guessing a fortnight or so, but everything was the same despite the mini winter we had. birds had been having a go at the cranberries i was after, there were still many for me to discover, though. for those who think my cranberries look puny: it so happens that this smaller variety, vaccinium microcarpum is more common around where i live, even though the larger one, vaccinium oxycoccos, can be found as well. admittedly, even they pale in comparison to the north american cultivars. everything is bigger over there...

i got the standard raven fly-over, as usual. it is always so good to see them.
blogger/picasa insisted on rotating the photo for your viewing pleasure...

a sample of the kinds of paths i follow, in a mixed spruce and pine grove. i found some nice herald of winter waxcaps (hygrophorus hypothejus) somewhere near here. it was so quiet and calm i just stood still for a while, trying to become one with my surroundings. it was a bit darker and duskier than the photo conveys...

here is the very best part. the story of my enoki tree is not over yet! lots of small velvet shank babies found both on the stump and the trunk of the tree laying on the ground. what a relief. i should have known they grow on dead wood, since they can be grown on woodchips, (and the tree wasn't exactly alive anymore even when it stood upright) but i just had to worry... i got so happy when i spotted the orange dots from afar, i just skipped over and sighed an enthusiastic "oh oh oh!" (oijoijoi!). if the past is any indication, i'll be checking on them every day to see if they've grown yet...