Friday, May 22, 2009

Plagues?

What are those ten plagues again? Locusts and frogs and boils and slaying of the first born? We've got a couple of 'em going on!

I was out spreading mulch and suddenly something jumped - I grabbed him and ran to the door to call Ken, who is so cool to come see all the stupid, kooky things I find. He took photos of this little peeper.


Plague 1 wasn't so bad - I happen to really dig frogs, and spring peepers rock. Though this one picked a pretty urban spot to hang out in, silly guy. I hope he makes it.

Our neighbors found ants (carpenter ants, grr) in their woodpile, and at 10 pm last night, we were outside with a flashlight smushing ants as they tried to lay a pheromone trail to the house. Today we had a preventative treatment (very green natural stuff they used) and the guy said they didn't infest, so we caught it in time.

Plague 2 averted, fingers crossed.

We should also note that our neighbor pointed out a dug-out hole into our garage (Mr. Squirrel!) which covers the "wild animals" plague, and we definitely were swatting no-see-ums all dar (gnats). Plus Ken swears it was a locust crashing into the bathroom screen last night, not a June bug. So that's five plagues? Eek.

Our next task is the parting of the Green Lawn. We started on the fence-pergola combo that will give us some privacy and help define our outdoor rooms, in designer-y lingo. We laid out all the cedar today (we got it all last year in a lot with the deck wood), remembered the design, labeled everything, and got set to start pouring footings tomorrow.

We're hoping to get a bunch of it done over the long weekend. Hopefully without much blood, pestilence, or hail.

2 comments:

Jason said...

Ack - I don't think I can read anymore, for fear of going into a jealous rage. Our backporch/deck/pergola is sketched out in my mind, but that's it. But the grill looks so sad out there, on its pad of cement.

Centers and Squares said...

Sometimes I feel like I live in the jungle when the plagues of summer start. I do battle with ants and have some bizarre long skinny beetles that appear in my house for their death throes. Good to hear your treatment was "green" - though sometimes I'm ready for serious chemicals once the days get warm and the bugs really get going.

Liz