JULY

THE SEVENTH MONTH • 2021 JULY HATH 31 DAYS

Day of glory! Welcome day! Freedom's banners greet thy ray. –John Pierpont

Farmer's Calendar

The humblest rodent can tell of catastrophes. Late one night, investigating a faint sound that came from the kitchen closet, I found a mouse trapped in a glass bottle up on a high shelf. It was a deer mouse, an outdoor creature, usually, and a great gatherer of seeds and nuts. The bottle was a clean, empty quart. The mouse had evidently discovered our supply of birdseed and had hit on the plan of dropping sunflower seeds into the bottle for safekeeping. With the bottle a quarter full of seeds, the mouse must have decided to visit his assets. Once in there, he couldn't get out.

I took the bottle down from the shelf. As I held him in his bottle, he looked up at me. I laid the bottle on its side in the closet and left it, so the mouse could walk out. Half an hour later he was still there. He couldn't or wouldn't leave. I could think of only one solution—a crash. I took the bottle outside, tilted it so seeds and mouse slid toward the neck, and gave its base a smart rap with a hammer. Nothing. Again. An explosion of glass, seeds, and escaping mouse. Sweeping up, I wondered what in the world he would tell his friends. Where would he begin?

Listen to the Farmer's Calendar at Almanac.com/Podcast.