Bugs

I love the country life, being born and raised in a small town it was not to difficult to revert back to living in a small community after living in some moderate sized cities. I love hearing the distant crow of the neighbors rooster in the mornings and the lonesome sound of the train whistle as it lumbers by about a mile down the road. I much prefer the sound of the many song birds we have in this area to the police sirens of the city. It is not as though there are not bugs in cities there are and some pretty nasty ones to boot but I think out here in the country there is not as much competition with the human population. We have quite a few beneficial bug on the farm, I am seeing ladybugs and have come upon a few praying mantis nests. My lawn such as it is has a large population of bees from the big bumble bee to the tiny mason bee. The one bug that is on my hate list, a bug that I am convinced has evolved over millions of years to come to this spot and time only to make me completely insane is the tick. As far as I can see there is no reason what so ever for the existence of a tick in any of its forms, they are evil, vile, literally blood sucking parasites.
My tick saga begins about two weeks ago when the temperature went from 35 degrees to 80 pretty much over night. I noticed a tick on one of the dogs, it was pulled off and disposed of. Then it got warmer and the humidity level rose and we had a war on our hands. In thirteen years of English Cocker Spaniel ownership I have never shaved my boys bald it was a point of pride they have such lovely coats however and my apologies to my breeder Lynda for the bald state the boys are now in, it was the only way I could find the ticks without turning into a monkey and grooming the dogs every second of the day. So two little boys shaved and bathed then the big dog bathed then flea and tick pesticides properly applied and some due diligence on my part the problem seemed to be in hand. Did I mention that was probably because it got cold again. Round two began when Mark was setting on the deck running his hand through his hair and pulled out a tick!! I was so enraged at this point that I grabbed the needle nose pliers and the candle lighter and burned the tick to a crisp then pulverized the charred corps into dust, it ain't EVER coming back! Then a few days later I found one crawling me ME, the I am so grossed out dance immediately followed with another tick funeral pyre. Later that night Mark gave me one of those fancy little hand held BernzOmatic butane torches, the kind you see the TV chefs use to toast meringue on a fancy pie. This little torch burns so hot that it turns the tick orange right before it crumbles into dust!!
As cool and efficient as my new little toy is I still don't want to spend hours a day doing tick checks on us or the dogs so what is a tiny farm to do? Why turn to the Internet of course!! I am sure we would go broke buying pesticide to spray 3 1/2 acres every time it rains not to mention that it would be harmful to everything. Seems chickens are a good at eating bugs especially fleas and ticks. We are going to get chickens for that very reason but because as Mark likes to point out I am incapable of doing anything "normal" I had to have a hand built coop made with reclaimed wood from a guy 100 miles from us with a wait time of six weeks. He has my deposit check but it is still six weeks. So by the time I get it up and running with chickens it will probably be cold again and the ticks will hide for the winter leaving me plucking and torching ticks all summer. What is plan B? Turns out plan B may be a fowl known as a guinea hen. What you ask is a guinea hen, well to me it kind of looks like what might happen if a chicken had an affair with a wild turkey.
But I digress, here is the great thing about guinea hens a pair of hens can clear 2 acres of ticks!! and fleas plus they are not particularly fond of snakes either they also range out farther thusly keep the pests down on a mini farm. They do require a bit of training because they are not coop birds but to keep them safe at night they need to be in a coop although not as elaborate as a chicken coop. So next on the list of stupid things I have done is setting up a coop and training guinea hens, anyone want to volunteer as my guinea hen wrangler?

30 Days in 168 Square Feet with Mark three dogs and a fish

After being obsessed for the last few years with living small I finally got my chance. How small you ask well we are in 168 square feet if you want to break out a tape measure it would be eight feet wide and twenty one feet long. That includes everything bedroom, bathroom, kitchen-living room-dining room. And I love it!!! admittedly it is not a lifestyle for everyone but it is working very well for us. So well we decided to build a deck instead of starting construction on a house. There are a few things I have learned about living this small, the first being that it is totally amazing the "things" I can do without. What you need vs what you want. And how it proves a theory I have had for years that if you are not happy inside "more" will not make you any happier. And so we have been laughingly calling out new space the Mini Mansion.

So what is it really like to live in 168 square feet with a husband, three dogs and a fish. There is a lot of bumping into each other dogs included, more frequent trips to the grocery store as there is not a pantry. Weekly visits to the Laundromat, where I meet the most fascinating people, like the guy who asked me if it was ok to use his fragrance free laundry detergent to wash his hair. And a lot less cleaning! We do not have cable, dish or satellite instead we have a digital TV antenna and a 17 inch TV which picks up a beautiful digital signal for CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS as well as Create TV and Me TV. I get Internet through my iPhone and if I want to use the laptop I head to the local coffee shop where they happily serve me coffee while I surf the Internet. Instead of hearing ambulances and people walking by the house at all hours I now hear the stream in the backyard cows mooing, roosters crowing and the train go by a few times a day. When I open my front door at night to let the dogs out I am greeted by the big dipper shining in the night sky. So are you ready to move to the countryside yet?? Well as Paul Harvey use to say "And now the rest of the story." I had told Mark last summer that I couldn't wait for the first snow storm I envisioned myself on the couch looking out the big windows at puffy white flakes gently drifting down in the moonlight while I sipped coffee and counted my blessing. This was not to be my first snow storm, we moved in January into the middle of the field because the electrician/plumber was not done setting the well pump or running the electricity. That meant we did not have power or water, no worries we are self contained we have propane and batteries and we will buy water, life is good!!!! For two days anyway, then the temperature dropped for the South it got cold in the single digits at night and not above 20 during the day and then it snowed. We were burning through propane and in the middle of the night everything quit working, dead batteries, so start the Nissan back it up to the Mini Mansion plug in the power and let the car idle for a few hours. Life is good!!! For two days anyway, it warmed up just in time for the toilet to plug up, our fault as we were not putting enough water through the system because we didn't have any water because the electrician/plumber doesn't work in a blizzard. Finally about two weeks in we had water and power and let me say that when you are taking spit baths with cold water the fact that you can turn on a faucet and actually get hot water will make you do a happy dance!! We are settling in the dogs are falling into a new routine life is good!! For about two days!! Then we had a mouse invade, let me just say I HATE mice, dirty smelly disease ridden yuck!!! I went insane put decon everywhere and Lysoled and clorxed everything and when I say everything I mean everything. No mouse droppings for a day or so then we turned on the furnace and it smelled exactly like burning straw. That's because it was burning straw, my little mouse friend had built the cutest little next in my furnace duct, well dryer vent ducting really but that's not the point. Mark looked at me and asked if I wanted to clean it out or if I wanted new, I just stared at him, right he says lets go to the store and get new. We left things torn apart and went to the hardware store came home reinstalled new duct and put it all back together. No more burning straw life is good, until later that night. We pulled the bed out for the night and my mouse friend is running back and forth behind the bed, I screamed Mark screamed the mouse screamed and ran up over the bed and headed for the bathroom. Mark was yelling to get him a bag to he could trap the mouse put it in the bag and get it outside, I grab a bag while he is vainly attempting to catch the little squatter. The mouse shot past Mark toward me I kicked it back toward Mark as he turned around it darted to the left through Nicks crate and under the bench seat for the table. This encited more caios as the table was torn apart and the vacuum employed to try and suck the little grey devil out of the corner. After the adrenaline rush had passed and more disassembling we discovered a hole which must lead to the great outdoors and realized the offender had escaped. Now we are sealed foamed and mouse free until the next time. Then Blu rolled in something green, slimy and stinky which he does on a regular basis and this required a bath. Did I mention my bathtub is about 3 feet long and maybe 18 inches wide and I have a 7 gallon water heater and that giving Blu a bath is a lot like chasing around a 25 pound little black greased pig. There was water and shampoo and dog hair everywhere but he was clean, until the next time. Cut to a few weeks later and for now things are as calm as they ever get for me. The puppies run and smell and dig and roll and are exhausted at night after keeping track of all the critter coming and goings on 3 1/2 acres. I asked Mark what it was like to live in 168 square feet and he just said that it is cozy. The fish has a great view of everything up on his perch next to the TV. As for me, we have everything we need and nothing we don't well except for the Fig Trees in the bathtub but that is a another story.