EPISODE 684 NEW DOORWAY FOR SKEOCH/FREEMAN FARMHOUSE CIRCA 1870 (AND DOORWAY 2022)
alan skeoch
Nov. 24, 2022
Mice! Lots of them squeeze through the old frame doorway of our farm house. This is a bad year for them.
Marjorie has caught 28 so far. All dead except one she caught by the tail and let it go down by the pond.
Where did it go? I bet it hightailed it back to this loose brick in the old farm house. If so, it is doomed.
Snap traps get them.
But that freeway for mice may not be as bad in future years. We ordered a new fancy doorway with sidelights and
transom…just like the old doorway but made of metal shielded lumber It took all summer to construct.
Old farm houses are not constructed using tape measures. Ours has an inch or so difference one side to the
other. Takes a skilled carpenter to overcome rule of thumb measurements.Thanks to Fossil Landscapes
we were able to find carpenters who are artists as well as tradesmen.
I think the cost of this doorway will be far more than the cost of a dozen mousetraps.
On cold winter nights when icicles hung from the window frames and frost deadened all the farm house
rooms but one. That room was the old kitchen where a big wood stove was kept as hot as a poker
Louisa and Ed Freeman spent the winters in that little kitchen while the rest of the
farm house was given over to frost and icicles. The big front doorway was full of holes for winter wind
to creep through. Nothing could be done. The old doorway was built in the 1870-s and we thought it could
not be replicated until now.
Mice? No problem. In the past The house was so damn cold even the mice looked for better homes
in the barn. The mice haven was our fault when we gutted the house and modernized it.
How smart are mice? Will they find holes in the field stone foundation … places where ancient cement
can be pushed side? I think Marjorie better hold onto the traps she purchased. If she catches a
mouse with a dent in its tail I will know that the mice are smarter than we are. They can find a way!
alan skeoch
2022
