Pesky Pests Update

Well, I am happy to report that my soccer goal contraption has been wildly successful in keeping the raccoons out of our garbage. Night before last I heard them scratching around out there and I gave a small warning bark (nothing too ferocious, just a little old tired beagle bark - my little pooch barely raised her head). In the morning I was happy to see that the trash cans were still upright and there was not a single piece of shredded tin foil or mauled paper towel anywhere.

And the ants? They are diminishing in both size and number. Now I will occasionally see a teeny tiny little ant scurrying across the kitchen window sill, but otherwise it loos as though my "pretty please go away" method is working (and maybe that stuff that my husband sprayed around the outside perimeter of the house has a little something to do with it too).

But (there's always a "but" in there, isn't there?)...

My garden is having to bear the consequences of our actions - as in the wild animals and pests are apparently quite upset about not being able to feast on our garbage and have taken to ravaging the tomato plants.

Yesterday Dalton went out to check the garden for signs of ripeness (the tomatoes have been fruiting like mad, and the cucumbers are just starting to flower, and the carrots, well, we can't seem to distinguish them from the weeds, so we don't really know how the carrots are doing), and when he came back in he said, "Bad news. All the big tomatoes are gone. Well, except for this one." Then he shows me this big beautiful green tomato that would have been just perfect in a summer salad, except that it had an ugly, big, huge imprint from some animal's teeth right on the bottom (bigger than a rabbit, but smaller than a bear - maybe a deer?).

Then he said, "Don't worry - all the small tomatoes on the Topsy-Turvy are fine." Whew. At least there was that.

This morning, there was more bad news. "Mom, the animals chewed off the bottoms of the Topsy-Turvy tomato plants. But there are still some growing on there up pretty high, so maybe it will be ok."

Somehow, I don't think so. I think by tomorrow, the tomatoes that I had such high hopes for will be just a homemade salsa pipe dream. I am sure the cucumbers and carrots and cantaloupe will also fall victim to the ravages of these wild beasts.

I think that these animals are getting revenge.

But I guess the wild beasts need to eat too. Maybe by growing and offering them my garden they will stay out of my trash. It can be my offering to Mother Nature and her servants.

And I think I might just be okay with that.

Pesky Pests

I have two major pests in my life right now.




No! Not them!

These:

And these:

I can't really decide which of these pests is driving me further up the wall. But my nearly every waking moment is spent trying to figure out how to get these guys right out of my life.

I have decided that raccoons may be further up the intelligence chain than I have ever given them credit for. It seems that no matter what I do, they figure out how to get into my trash cans and shred everything inside beyond all recognition. We have talked to all the experts at Home Depot and Lowe's and Ace Hardware, and we purchased top of the line locking lid trash containers. We have consulted the Internet experts and have laced the trash bags with cayenne pepper. We have even gone so far as to make pouring ammonia around the trash area a routine part of our nighttime rituals, along with locking the doors and starting the dishwasher.

And still...


(do you see how they laugh at me?)

After I make my way upstairs in the evening, I open my bedroom window so that I can be on alert for the sounds of the trash cans being rocked back and forth and the lids being unlocked, turned, and tugged off. This is when I make my move. I creep up to the window beside the bed and with a great deal of ferociousness and umph, I bark. Loudly. Like a dog. Like a really, really big mean dog. Until my throat is scratchy and my eyes hurt. Usually this frightens our real-life little dog, asleep in her kennel, more than it deters the demon critters from uncovering the leftover scrambled eggs and peanut butter sandwich scraps in our trash. Oh, don't get me wrong, the lunatic barking usually makes the raccoons pause for a brief nanosecond (they are probably not really pausing, but more like laughing their own secret little raccoon laugh at me), but then they go right back to their midnight snack.

Last night, I tried something new:

Yep, that is the kid's soccer goal thingy, turned so that the netting covers the trash cans, with one of the recycling containers balanced on top. I am hoping that the slightly more difficult access will prompt the pests to move on down the road and rip through someone else's garbage. Kind of like putting the Snicker's bars in the very bottom of the deep freeze so that you forget about them and then if you do happen to find them, it just might seem like more trouble than it is worth to wait for them to thaw and eat.

So far, it's working. (The soccer goal contraption, that is. Not so much with the whole chocolate hiding thing.)

I'll keep you posted.

Then there are the ants.

(This is where I would put in a picture of an ant making it's way towards my sugar bowl, but um, well, the ants are being a little camera shy this morning and even though I went through the kitchen with my camera all ready saying things like "here, anty, anty, come out, come out, where ever you are" in a really high pitched voice, they didn't come out. But the dog thought I was playing some weird game that involved a treat - go figure).

They say everything is bigger in Texas, but Lordy, in all my Texas years I have never seen ants the size of these. They first showed up about a month ago, and apparently they like the place. So far they seem to be confined to the kitchen. Now I know most people would think that this is really a no-brainer - bug spray, right? But here's the deal. About a year ago I went out for Chinese food and my fortune cookie contained a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln that went along the lines of "an ant's life is a sweet to it, as ours is to us" or something like that. Anyway, it makes it hard for me to kill an ant. I mean, I really don't mind them outside, doing the things that ants do. I just don't want them inside my house - inside my kitchen. It's just a little gross, you know?

And scooping them up and throwing them outside just isn't working. They keep coming back. And they seem to be multiplying. Maybe my kitchen is the new Club Med for ants. I don't know. I think we are going to have to spray some sort of chemical to get rid of them. I am hoping we can find something that repels, more than extinguishes them, because I sure don't want a bunch of dead ants messing with my karma.

And that's the thing, I guess. The ants, the raccoons, bees, mud, the laundry, my sister-in-law, and all of the other pesky things in my life - I don't want them gone off the face of the earth for all eternity and forever, but away from my own personal reality, for just a little bit, would sure be nice.

Do They Pass Out Awards For This Stuff?

At the beginning of every month, my kids look over the school lunch menu and circle the days that they want to order lunch. Today was one of those glorious days where Dalton and Sabrina chose to have the cafeteria's Bacon Cheeseburger instead of my nutritious packed lunch consisting of PB &J, carrot sticks, and a granola bar. Go figure. Actually, I love the days where they both want to order lunch because it means that morning I can hit the snooze button one extra time.

When Dalton came home from school today, he said, "Ask me how the bacon cheeseburger was at lunch."

ME: OK, how was the bacon cheeseburger?

DALTON: Gee, Mom, I don't know. We had our field trip today and you were supposed to pack a lunch for the picnic.

ME: Crap! Today was the field trip? Are you sure?

DALTON: Yes I am sure. I was there. Without a lunch.

ME: But the field trip wasn't on our kitchen calendar!

DALTON: And yet, we went and I didn't have a lunch.

ME: So what did you do? Did you get to eat lunch at all?

DALTON: Oh yeah. I got to go through the lunch line with the midgets when we got back to school and they gave me a PB&J.

ME: Midgets? Short people?

DALTON: (major eye rolling) You know - the FIRST graders. I was soooo embarrassed.

ME: Well, I'm sure you weren't the only one that didn't have a lunch on the field trip.

DALTON: Yep. I was the only one. Thanks Mom.

Anytime, son. Anytime.

Je Suis un Inadapté

I want to go home.


There I've said it.


I've made something of an idiot of myself and I want to go home.



Friday night was Sabrina's end of season soccer party and one of the other soccer moms offered up her house for the party. I was really looking forward to the get together because I hadn't really had a chance to visit with the other moms, plus after days and days of cold rainy weather, Friday afternoon turned into a beautiful day with actual SUNSHINE.


And the party went great. But here is where I screwed up.


When we were leaving the party, I looked around at this nice woman's expertly decorated house and saw that there were beer bottles, wine glasses, plastic cups, bowls, napkins, and other party paraphernalia everywhere. And all the guests were making a beeline for the door. So I told the hostess that if she would like, I would be happy to help her clean up - I just needed to run my husband and kids home and then I would be back in a jiffy to help her. Of course, she protested and said, "No, no. I don't need any help." I said, "Really - I don't mind at all." And she said, "Well, OK, if you want to come back that would be great."


So I left her house thinking, "Cool! Maybe we'll get to gossip about all the other moms while we load the dishwasher! Find out who does her hair while we wipe down counter tops! I'll get the scoop on her vegetarian chili recipe while we wrap up leftovers! Three cheers for female bonding!!!"


But when I got back to her house a mere 20 minutes later, I was greeted with, "Oh. I didn't think you would actually come back."


"Well, of course I came back! What can I help you with?"


"Nothing. I don't need you to help with the cleaning up!"


"No really, I came to help."


"No really. I don't want you to help."


Which left me just kind of standing there thinking, "Well, this is awkward." I mean it's not like I showed up at her door with a bottle of Windex and roll of paper towels, but I don't know these people well enough to just pop in for a social call. Standing there in the doorway, I could feel the blood rush to my face as I tried to figure out how I misread the signals. Was I supposed to come back over, or not? If I say, "Oh - OK" and turn around and leave, will that be rude? If I walk in and put my purse down and start picking up beer bottles, is that rude?


At this point her husband tried to come to the rescue by offering me a drink. (Warning: This is the part of the story where I REALLY make an idiot of myself.) I told the husband thanks for the offer, but I brought my own. And then I pulled a Mike's Hard Cranberry Lemonade out of my purse and twisted off the top with my shirt hem.





I know. Real. Classy.


Maybe I could blame it on a sudden onset of nervousness, but see, at the party earlier everyone was drinking wine and some weird kind of beer and I can't drink wine (migraines) and I am kind of particular about my beer (as in I only like Coors Light), so when I dropped my husband and kids off at home, I ran inside and grabbed a Mike's just in case there was still drinking going on.


So anyway, I ended up sitting in their formal living room drinking spiked lemonade out of the bottle (until the husband discreetly took it from me and poured it into a wine glass) and having polite conversation for about an hour. Of course, by this point I had worked myself into a nervous wreck and was just feeling completely inappropriate (do you know what I mean? where everything you say and do feels exaggerated and too loud and too, I don't know, too MUCH?). Like when they asked me if I had a job, I am pretty sure I said in a high pitched, self-righteous kind of way, "blogging is my passion, but I also do some human resources consulting on the side." Somehow I finally managed to say something about how the time flies and how I really needed to get home. I could practically hear them rolling their eyes and laughing at me as I got in my car.


As I made the short drive home, I realized the experience left me feeling kind of cheap, and kind of desperate. Like I had misread the signals and showed too much enthusiasm by coming back over, even though I could have sworn I had been invited.

I felt like I had let a boy go too far on a first date. Do you know what I mean?


Back at home, I found my husband waiting up for me in the dining room. "Did you make a new friend?" he asked.


"I don't think so. And, by the way, I want to go home."

Innocence Lost

So the homework was done, dinner was cooking, and I sent the kids outside to catch a few moments of non-rainy fresh air.

Do you remember that little hand-clapping game we would play as kids - Miss Mary Mack? Somehow Miss Mary Mack (mack, mack, mack) is still all dressed in black (black, black, black), and she still has silver buttons (buttons, buttons, buttons) all down her back (back, back, back).

But there is a new character on the hand-clapping, sing-song circuit. BARNEY!

(hit play on the video below)

For those of you who may not want to play the video for whatever reason (maybe you are at work, or maybe the baby just finally got to sleep, or maybe the kids are already home for summer vacation and SpongeBob is turned up so loud that you wouldn't be able to hear the darn thing anyway), I've written down the words to the latest in elementary school top 40:

Mama, Mama, can’t you see
Clap, clap
Clap, clap, clap
What this baby’s done to me
Clap, clap
Clap, clap, clap
Took away my mp3
Clap, clap
Clap, clap, clap
Now I’m stuck with dumb Barney
Clap, clap
Clap, clap, clap
Mommy called the doctor and the doctor said
Clap, clap
Clap, clap, clap
Oops – Barney’s dead
Clap, clap
Clap, clap, clap
Shot in the head
Clap, clap
Clap, clap, clap
Barney was shot by G.I. Joe
Clap, clap
Clap, clap, clap
Up and down, high and low
Clap, clap
Clap, clap, clap
Barney was shot by G.I. Joe
Clap, clap
Clap, clap, clap
Tic, tac, toe - three in a row
Clap, clap
Clap, clap, clap
Barney was shot by G.I. Joe
Clap, clap
Clap, clap, clap