Battling the Critters

I always thought of myself as an animal lover.

I have discovered that I really am not.

Oh, I like a friendly dog. I'm up for watching cute little goats jump around in a barn lot. I admire the beauty of a fast and flashy horse. I prize a well grown and groomed market lamb in a show ring. I like seeing the gentle cows in the pastures. So, I guess technically, I am an animal lover.

Technically, I just don't like rodents of any kind and I am not a reverent birder. I don't know whether to refer to these as critters, vermin, or just a plain nuisance. 

I'm still tying reflective ribbons on my truck to scare those pesky things away. I am still having to drive through the car wash about once per week, though. GRRRR!!!

As for the rodents, I've begun to battle with them as well. This time it is not with traps in the house. This time the battle is taking place outside. Chipmunks or squirrels have had free run of our yard. We have several oak trees and it is a haven for them. They gather up acorns and munch on them and store them away. They scamper around in the grass and up the trees. At times, I've even seen them scamper across the porch or along the fence rail. To me, these animals are all just rats wit a fur coat. I am not a fan at all!

Recently, they have been being pesky on our porch. Remember all the flower pots I worked so hard to fill? Well, these squirrels and chipmunks seem to think those were placed on the porch for their enjoyment. 

They dug into the trough and pots that I have near the basement entry and dug up some of my newly sprouted seedlings. 

They've also scratched potting soil out of my porch pots as they were digging holes. They threw some of the soil onto the porch and window sills. I have not been a happy camper. 

I have declared to battle them and keep them out of my plants. My first step has been to use an additive to prevent them from digging in the soil of my pots and trough. I simply sprinkled a bit of crushed red pepper flakes atop the soil in each container.

All of my flower pots sort of look as if they have some sort of top-dressing on them. We shall see how effective this remedy is. I am determined to battle these critters and not let them win! Stay tuned for a special report at a later date.

Painting Project

One of my summer projects was to paint the furniture that sits on the back porch. Even though I ordered multiple cans of paint, I still ran out before getting everything coated. So, I still had a little bit of a project to finish up this year.

One of the things that we got from the dairy barn when Mom sold the farm equipment was this table that Daddy had made. It sat in the tank room of the milk barn for years. I remember Daddy making the table and recall it getting painted with a barn red paint. Mike has been wanting me to paint it since the day we brought it home! 

Back in the summer when we were painting the other back porch furniture, he asked once again if I had plans to paint it and wouldn't I like to put it up on the porch rather than have it sit down on a concrete pad just off the porch. I'd kept it there to use as a potting bench and the dirt that fell through it didn't bother me since it wasn't up on the porch where we walked in and out each day.

I needed more paint to finish up a couple of things and picked the paint up at our local Ace Hardware. On a warm, sunny day, I dragged the milk barn table out into the grass and gave it a good once over with a wire brush. Then, I washed it off and let it dry before giving it a nice coat of paint to match everything else on the back porch.

After a thorough paint job, I asked our son in law to move it up onto the porch for me because it is quite heavy! He put it near to Mike's grill so that it can be handy for holding things when he is doing his outdoor cooking this next spring. I realized that I hadn't made a photo of the finished product when I noticed it sitting out there one morning after a shower of rain. 

I loved how the little droplets of rain on it made it look like it was covered in diamonds! Truly, I do think of it as a diamond. I remember resting drinks, medicines, phone books, and even a baby carrier with Bryan sleeping on it while I was milking cows. The fact that Daddy made it even though it is a rudimentary piece of utility furniture makes it even more of a diamond to me!

Porch Oasis

During this time of staying home our front porch has become an oasis for me. The sun shines in during the morning hours which is great during this cooler time of year. It was also great during the summer months because the shade would cool things down as the sun rotated around to the other side of the house. I have enjoyed sitting out there and watching the world go by down the highway that runs in front of our house. I'll take a tablet out there and check my personal email and catch up on blog reading. I'll peruse some online magazines or Instagram and pin some inspirational photos. 

Sometimes it would just be my loyal companion and I and sometimes we might have a few visitors.

I was so grateful to have this space as an outdoor room where we could read a book, watch the world go by, take a nap, and just relax.  One thing I did notice during July and early August is that even though the space was shady after lunchtime, it still was a bit hot. Plus, late in the afternoons when there was no air stirring the mosquitos tried to feast on me. So, Mike and I talked about it and decided a ceiling fan might be a good investment.  As with most home choices, Mike left it to me to decide the style and location. So, when we had Richard Stanaland from The Tool Chest here to do a few handyman jobs, I made sure to have the ceiling fan ordered and ready to install.

Since it was already October before we got around to having the work done, the dog days of hot weather were already past. We've had a warm day or two and I turned the fan on in the afternoon when I went out after finishing up work. So, I know that the stirring air discourages the mosquitos and bugs somewhat. I'm looking forward to the breeze it will provide when next summer comes, though!

Summer Project #3

Before school was out, I had decided that I needed to paint the back porch furniture because it was looking kind of ratty.  Some pieces had paint worn off, some were starting to rust a bit, some had a grey fungus growing on them like is growing on the bark of the trees in the back yard, and some had some greenish grey mold-looking stuff on them.  

So, the first thing I did was get a bucket of soapy water, line up the chairs, and begin scrubbing.

I quickly got hot, sweaty, and a bit wobbly due to my not being accustomed to being outside of the air conditioning, getting older and out of shape, and Mike says I was going at it like I was killing snakes.  So, when I came inside to rest and cool off after scrubbing all the chairs, he picked up his phone and called a neighbor.  He lined up a young high school boy to come give me a hand.  So, I scrubbed a couple more pieces and the young man showed up for duty.

I had estimated how many cans I thought would be needed and placed a large order to be sure I had enough paint on hand.

Cole tackled the job with gusto by stacking up four or five chairs and carrying them out into the yard under a shade tree where I indicated I'd planned to paint. 

He painted all I had scrubbed and promised to come back another day to finish up and return everything to the porch.  He even assured me that he could scrub the pieces that I had left.  So, in a day or so, he returned and finished up the painting.  Then, came a day or so later and put everything back into place.

  

It all looks so much better!  I never dreamt it would turn out looking so nice.  It almost looks brand new!

A couple of days later, I decided that I needed to use the four left-over cans of paint to spruce up my plant stands.  So, I lined them all up and gave them a good scrub.  I came inside to cool off and eat a bite while they dried.  Then, I took them out under the shade tree and gave them a coat of paint.

I also unintentionally gave my feet a coat of paint and some of it bled onto my flip-flops and, sadly, they did not look nearly as good as all the furniture did with a coat of paint!

Changes

The farm across the road sold a couple of years ago and the developer has been moving dirt and digging ponds and building roads.

Now, the home building has started.  I think we heard that there would be about 185 homes built over there. 

I hope they don't all have a big burn like this day-in-and-day-out.  These pictures were made last week.  Today, I'm out on the front porch reading a book and the skies are a beautiful blue with fluffy clouds floating overhead.