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I actually managed to write an email to someone, so I should get the most I can out of that work...
Well, the insulation we pulled out of the barn ceiling, causing showers of mouse poops, is probably not really news simply because mouse poops is old hat. (or ON my old hat, anyway.)
So I guess the real amusement du jour is carpenter ants. We smashed them frantically for a couple of days, and started limbing off the dead tree out back in prep for taking it down, assuming that was where they were coming from. Friday I climbed up on the roof while Eor was at work and took a limb off a different tree because I saw an ant on the roof (through the upstairs hall window you can see the roof over the downstairs bathroom). Yeah, I insist Eor not do stupidly dangerous things while I'm not home, but didn't think twice about this. It seemed perfectly safe - a very flat roof, and only one story where I climbed up. Until I was tossing the branch over and realized THAT side is two stories and I would fall onto scrap lumber and boulders if I lost my balance.
Then yesterday we started mixing up poison and Eor started trying to determine where the ants were coming from, and he discovered another colony relocating from a third tree and headed toward the barn, so over the past two days we've pulled all the scrap lumber, at least thirty plastic plant pots, a broken brush mower, buried railroad ties - just a ridiculous amount of crap - out from under the barn, dug down and weeded so that neither dirt nor plants touch wood, and sprayed poison barrier on every piling. Cursing the entire time. Drainage in the yard should be much better, now, between that and the scrap we cleaned out downhill from the barn last week.
(We had been cleaning up the last of the ridiculously huge mound of cut brush which had been behind the barn (about 6 feet deep and twenty long/wide) and Eor was just saying, "and I'll lay stones in along this way, which should greatly improve the drainage," when I looked down and realized that under the rotted wood pulp there already were rather regularly sized stones, nicely sloped and curved just as one might imagine they should be. Cursing ensued.)
As regards the ants, however, we're now so used to their presence that we just watched them burrowing into the dish sponge and simply wondered if they were trying to make a nest in it. If the poison we've already spread around doesn't get them soon the baits we've ordered will come in the mail in a few days.
And, well, yes, that's pretty much how things are going. It all has to get done, so we're kind of random about how we do it, and don't worry at all about our ADD. Turning the compost heaps gets done when I happen to notice them. The occasional bit of weeding happens if I'm passing and think "this flower patch would look better without random grass going to seed in the middle of it." The flower beds by the driveway really are very pretty, even as overgrown as they are. The old lady may have been a hoarder, but she had a good eye for planting perennials.
Oh, and my brothers came to visit for Mother's Day, and we opened the box that the Embassy sent. There was very little salvageable in it, but we pulled out a few things. We had an awfully good time just being together and having some laughs over the extended weekend, and visiting family. One evening we burned brush, drank, and sang a lot of songs. Stayed up way too late. I hope we didn't disturb the neighbors. :) We also spread our father's ashes, which had been sitting on my shelf for three years. It's unusual for us to all three get together. I ought to tell you that story in more detail, but really I also ought to eat a brownie and some ice-cream and then get to bed. I've been staying up way too late.
Well, the insulation we pulled out of the barn ceiling, causing showers of mouse poops, is probably not really news simply because mouse poops is old hat. (or ON my old hat, anyway.)
So I guess the real amusement du jour is carpenter ants. We smashed them frantically for a couple of days, and started limbing off the dead tree out back in prep for taking it down, assuming that was where they were coming from. Friday I climbed up on the roof while Eor was at work and took a limb off a different tree because I saw an ant on the roof (through the upstairs hall window you can see the roof over the downstairs bathroom). Yeah, I insist Eor not do stupidly dangerous things while I'm not home, but didn't think twice about this. It seemed perfectly safe - a very flat roof, and only one story where I climbed up. Until I was tossing the branch over and realized THAT side is two stories and I would fall onto scrap lumber and boulders if I lost my balance.
Then yesterday we started mixing up poison and Eor started trying to determine where the ants were coming from, and he discovered another colony relocating from a third tree and headed toward the barn, so over the past two days we've pulled all the scrap lumber, at least thirty plastic plant pots, a broken brush mower, buried railroad ties - just a ridiculous amount of crap - out from under the barn, dug down and weeded so that neither dirt nor plants touch wood, and sprayed poison barrier on every piling. Cursing the entire time. Drainage in the yard should be much better, now, between that and the scrap we cleaned out downhill from the barn last week.
(We had been cleaning up the last of the ridiculously huge mound of cut brush which had been behind the barn (about 6 feet deep and twenty long/wide) and Eor was just saying, "and I'll lay stones in along this way, which should greatly improve the drainage," when I looked down and realized that under the rotted wood pulp there already were rather regularly sized stones, nicely sloped and curved just as one might imagine they should be. Cursing ensued.)
As regards the ants, however, we're now so used to their presence that we just watched them burrowing into the dish sponge and simply wondered if they were trying to make a nest in it. If the poison we've already spread around doesn't get them soon the baits we've ordered will come in the mail in a few days.
And, well, yes, that's pretty much how things are going. It all has to get done, so we're kind of random about how we do it, and don't worry at all about our ADD. Turning the compost heaps gets done when I happen to notice them. The occasional bit of weeding happens if I'm passing and think "this flower patch would look better without random grass going to seed in the middle of it." The flower beds by the driveway really are very pretty, even as overgrown as they are. The old lady may have been a hoarder, but she had a good eye for planting perennials.
Oh, and my brothers came to visit for Mother's Day, and we opened the box that the Embassy sent. There was very little salvageable in it, but we pulled out a few things. We had an awfully good time just being together and having some laughs over the extended weekend, and visiting family. One evening we burned brush, drank, and sang a lot of songs. Stayed up way too late. I hope we didn't disturb the neighbors. :) We also spread our father's ashes, which had been sitting on my shelf for three years. It's unusual for us to all three get together. I ought to tell you that story in more detail, but really I also ought to eat a brownie and some ice-cream and then get to bed. I've been staying up way too late.