Mouse Patrol

One of the "joys" of country living is that when it gets cold outside, mice come out of the fields and seek the warmth of houses. It really has nothing to do with house keeping and everything to do with country living. I can usually catch them around the furnace chimney, the warmest area in the house. Fall time means setting and checking traps. Today I got the first mouse of 2014. And where there is one, there is another.

I don't like using poison because it can get tracked around. I don't want poison all over the house with pets and kids in the house. Instead, I use expensive trap houses. I have tried many different kinds of traps but these work the best.

Bug Mess

I have a light on the front of the garage that lights up all the corn fields for about half a mile. Unfortunately, this attracts all the bugs for about half a mile. Then, on a regular basis, I have to clean all the dead bugs out of the light and wash down the front of the garage. Just another joy of home ownership!

Water Fountain

Packing away the water fountain for winter.

This is a task on my fall list every year.

And then every spring I put it back together.

The boards create a base to help with snow and water that build on top.

The first trash bag faces the wind coming out of the west.

Two layers of trash bags will protect it all winter long.

Driveway

Time to re-stone the driveway.

 It takes two dump truck loads, a friend with a tractor, and a lot of back breaking shoveling.

Many of my neighbors have black topped their driveways. But for that cost, I can stone my driveway for the next 35 years! And I have yet to find anyone who can give me a practical justification for black topping. 

Weeds

Celebrating home ownership. We arrived home from vacation and the flower beds had been taken over by weeds! Two wheel barrel loads later, the flower beds are now reclaimed!

Dehumidifier

I returned from vacation to find my basement at 70% humidity and smelling very musty. I suspected that if the humidity level raised much higher it might start raining in my basement!

My basement is always humid. There is a spring on the hill out back that feeds my sump pump all year long and keeps the basement moist. Usually I combat this with two 70 pint dehumidifiers, but one of them died last year. I had hopes to be able to survive on only one, but no luck

So I am now the owner of another 70 pint dehumidifier. These things are rather expensive, but are cheap when considering the  cost of damage that humidity can cause to a finished basement.

Disney 2014

If you came to my blog expecting to find updates on the Disney Trip for 2014? I have moved Disney updates to a site where I can get thousands of hits: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3247092