Thursday, January 10, 2013

Fighting with Nature

For the past few weeks, I have been battling ants. I have 6 traps in the kitchen, 8 in the food pantry, and 1 in each bathroom. Now and then, there are none visible. Some days, they have returned.

This morning I took a big box of crackers from my pantry and opened it to get the crackers (stored in zip locked bags) out to take to work for our pot-luck. I was going to serve them with spinach/avocado dip. Immediately I noticed the box was crawling with ants - probably a hundred of them. Not only were they in the box, but they had chewed little holes in the zip locked bags and were crawling all over the crackers. I knew I had to get rid of them quick, so I opened the porch door and threw them out, knowing the ants would freeze. I went to plan B and got the chocolate chip cookies I had stored in the porch to keep frozen. I knew this would be a good addition to the pot-luck.

After work tonight, I returned home and per usual, I opened the porch door to let Nels out for a few minutes. He went toward the cracker box, so I snagged my broom and began to clean up my mess from this morning. Then I discovered something — or someone — had been in my porch. The cover to my rosettes was off and most of the rosettes had been eaten. Also, a cover of one of my tin containers with left-over Christmas cookies was off and the entire can was empty! What on earth?! I went in the house and got a flash light to shine on the porch to see where a creature could have gained entry. Sure enough, I discovered a hole the size of a grapefruit – in my brand new screened porch! It had to be a squirrel. It's too small for a raccoon and too large for a mouse or a rat.

After bringing all the food containers in the house and thoroughly sweeping up the porch, I put a tray in front of the hole and placed a metal table in front of it. This is my insurance to keep Nels from escaping. For sure, I will have to have that section of screening replaced and store no more food outside.

I'm not done with my fight with nature yet. Here's the last straw: after cleaning up this big mess, I put on my coat and left for the Weight Watcher's meeting. Not even 15 feet from my front door, I fell on the ice, landing on my back and hitting both my elbow and the back of my head. Did I mention it is raining here today? 34 degrees and raining! I arrived at my meeting with a very wet coat — all the way through to the lining, wet pants, and a very sore elbow.

I'm home now, in my pj's and wrapped up in a very warm, cozy bathrobe and slippers. I'm tired of nature tonight. I'm taking a break.

3 comments:

I Love Barbershop said...

WOW! That was certainly a horrible day. You are lucky that you didn't break anything with the fall or even worse.
Sorry about the nature (animal) problem.

carrster said...

Ooh no!! What a yuck day. Hopefully you're feeling better from your fall. Make sure to get ANYTHING checked out if it feels 'off.' Better safe than sorry!!

Laurey said...

Donna....I'm so sorry that you had to deal with all of this icky stuff yesterday! I'm concerned about your fall.....how are your back and head today? Hoping that you are having an uneventful day and that your body is not a concern for you! LOVE you!mini