Not In My Kitchen

I found this article today in one of my searches on how to create a replacement window screen.  It is definitely time for lists of projects. I have spring fever.

The article claims that we all have dangerous, toxic bugs hanging off the fridge door handle and everywhere else you've touched the last five minutes, in your food, and all over the counters, etc. Here's my formal, not so humble opinion of such claims.

The article was NOT written for stay-at-home moms who spend  parts of every day in the kitchen preparing and cleaning up for meals.  No, I do not believe that I have mold growing in my kitchen unless it is IN the fridge and I really work on making sure that is not so, as well.  No, I do not have E coli! of all things in my kitchen. Yuck! I surely hope not. When I bring raw chicken to the sink for cleaning and prep I do have, temporarily, salmonella bacteria in my kitchen, most likely, for a few minutes. But by the time I've finished and all that chicken is ready to be cooked/baked/or fried, old Sam and Ella have been killed dead with hot soapy water and bleach.  The meat is safely in or on the pan and in an hour or so Sam and Ella have expired in the oven, as well.

Changing out the dishrag every day and keeping the laundry done up will certainly keep our areas germ free. And did they mention in the article that the high setting on the dryer kills a lot of germs?

 The article goes for folks who eat at home a few times a week and where mom and dad both work away from home. Of course, there's mold and crawlies in the kitchen if nobody is there to clean and cook all day long.  Mom was right when she said to get right at the dishes after the meal is done. "The sooner we get the work done the sooner we can play."

While I'm at it, here's a tip for you.  Using green laundry soap and softeners will keep your wash cloths from smelling badly.  Kill the smell with a cup of ammonia in your next laundering and never buy another bottle of non green soap.  Not only will your wash stay sweet and clean; your sewer won't be building up with a lot of clogging gunk that won't break down. Purex has a "green" soap that works nicely.

Summer is Giving Way to Fall... and Other Ramblings

The green of the leaves and grasses is old and faded. I tend to mourn the passing away of summer even while relishing the arrival of cooler weather.  Swimming and sweating are done. There’s school instead.  It is time for canning and cleaning away the crop of cobwebs in all the ceiling corners.
Speaking of spiders and cobwebs.  It is better to vacuum them up.  Imagine sweeping down spiders and webs with a broom. The spiders go where?  I feel crawly just thinking about that.  When you merely disturb  their career for a day or two by catching the web on a broom, they’re bound to be back to rebuild.  It’s much less creepy to extend the sweeper hose and watch those spiders and their creations disappear into the end of the nozzle forever. 
I babysat Benny while his parents went fishing on Labor Day.  Benny likes me a lot, so them leaving him with me was easy.  He thought I should sit and play with him and I did some.  When I went back to my work; He followed me around hopefully but only until he saw I was useless and then he began his own explorations.  At a year old, he walks and climbs and investigates.  So you can’t really have him out of sight.  It has not been that long since I had a baby of my own, yet I realized with the grandbabies home this summer that we have forgotten how much care and time babies take.  Being Marmee is the best!  You get to have all the fun of babies and sleep at night, too.   :)
Then there are the methodical thieves in our neighborhood.  They have successfully broken into and cleaned out the local church building more than once…of computers and school equipment.  Our house is two or three blocks away, so we’re locking everything up again, too.  We are frustrated.  We have lived in this little village for most of 25 years and have never needed to lock anything.  We’ve gone for trips for over a week and left the house open before.  Those innocent days seem to be over for us.
Our house is for-sale-by-owner, as it has been for several years already.  The reasons are obvious.  Unfortunately those same reasons are why it will take a miracle to sell it.   If we didn’t like our house, we’d really be in a jam.  Or if we HAD to sell it, which we don’t. 
 
Here’s one of my latest wonderings. Our providers spend hours, days, weeks, months, and years working to bring home the bacon.  Have you ever thought of how mundane and endless that must feel for them?  Even though Elv enjoys his job; the fact is that it gets really boring sometimes.  And getting out there every single work day takes what my mom calls “stick-to-it-iveness”.   I think we women ought to consider our rich and varied days of home creating, baby care, teaming up with our teens, and chumming with our friends over the phone or tea times as wonderful privileges. I would hate to have to trade roles with my man…I think I’d fail it.
 
Get rid of the fruit flies by luring them to their deaths.  Pour a little apple cider vinegar into a quart jar. Roll up a piece of typing paper to the shape of a funnel.  Put the small end into the jar with most of the paper standing out of the top of the jar.  Very soon the vinegar in the jar will be full of floating fruit fly bodies! Eww!  But that is SO much better than all over the kitchen.  Or you can keep house like my mom and never have them in the first place, but I don’t know how to do that.

Chipmunks Again

It was exactly one year ago to this very day that I posted about the chipmunks in the ceilings of our basement bedroom.  The running, somers-sualts. back flips, slides, and squeaks  over our heads began very early this morning around 2 AM.  Words like infestation amd pestilence come to mind. Brad shot many chipmunks last summer. Did they reproduce during the winter? So I have asked Elv to bring home a new box of Bounce dryer sheets tonight.  We'll get them out of the house at least that way, but we're going to set rat traps and be done with those critters altogether, we hope.
Then there's the strawberry patch. You can't beat the chippy's to the patch.  They prefer the largest fruits partially ripened. Therefore we shall have to be entirely rid of the critters before strawberry pickin' time.Wish me all the best in the earthly battles of this week.