Pests......

Egad, where did September go.  I am starting to feel somewhat like a mole, what with working so many night shifts lately, as in busy at nights, and sleeping during the day.  That being said, there have been a few awake moments not devoted to work.  

My garden continues to both frustrate and gladden me.  The frustration has not been targeted at the garden but more at all things pestilential in my life.  It is a sad state of affairs when rat bait, slug bait and multiple cans of flyspray outweigh anything else in the groceries.  I digress but stay with me ....  I am now on my third brand of one meal kills all rat and mice bait, not including the high pitched thingie that you plug in and is meant to rid the house of a variety of pests ( the only thing I haven't had a lot of lately is visitors, lol).  I have been through mortein which they seemed not to eat much of (killed plenty at Tardun with this brand); Talon I think was the next brand, for those discerning mice/rodents that are resistant to products in other brands (ya think); and am now onto rat squeak or rat pak (can't remember which one) ...... will keep you posted, -  and none have proved their advertising yet, as I have noticed a new calling card left on the window sill over night, - may it be the last one !!!!!

Back to the garden.  The gladdening is from flowering plants and small shrubs which are bursting out all over and the fact I am eating lettuce nearly everyday and spinach a couple of times a week still.  The frustration is .. wait for it .... PESTS.  My beans are valiantly trying to bean away (two meals) however the vines seem to be disappearing before my eyes as locusts and snails take their toll - the broccoli have almost disappeared because of the same thing.  Right I thought, ( read that with a John Cleese tone in your head), I will get the little baskets, and the universe responded by having slug bait on special .... so I bought a kilo of it, heh heh.  Now, over here the snails are different.  I believe I have seen one shell in the garden of the common brown snail we have in nz but over here, they are white and small, about the size of your thumbnail, so much so, at first when I saw them covering the lemon tree here, I thought they were blossom.  Managed to knock most of them of the lemon tree (more of a shrub as it is only a baby one) whilst watering it but given 30 mins they were sliming their way up the trunk again. Right, again!  Inside I came to get soapy water with a dollop of garlic for good measure  in the bucket and once again I swooshed the lemon tree with it whilst knocking them off with a stick. Suck on those suds, I thought.  I also left a liberal sprinkling of the bait I had bought.  They must breed them tough here because not a day later, the snails have crawled back, though I am happy to report there are a layer of dead ones on the ground.  I am very careful when bringing lettuce and spinach inside and do the whole salt water rinse before anything else as the odd tiny one escapes the naked eye as I beat them off whilst  harvesting.

I have had another house inspection and passed with flying colours again which is nice.  I had just come off  a ten hour and two 12 hour night shifts the morning it was due.  I rang the real estate agents who said it would cost $55 to reschedule inspection and when they tried to get hold of the agent to maybe try later in the day they could not reach her.  What the heck, I left a large note on the kitchen bench, one at the front door and went to bed as after a quick zoom through the house with the vacuum cleaner, I was ready to fall over with tiredness.  I did not hear a thing and as my room was the only one in the house not completely tidy, I guess I killed two birds with one stone so to speak. 

In preparation for this house check, one of the tick list things is lawn care.  Now I have never had to do anything like this in my life but off to Bunnings I went and bought a container of weed and feed, waited until 7 days after I mowed the lawns and applied it to the back lawn.  It is meant to be an easy process.... the container comes with a lid that you have to put another plastic gizmo (attached to lid) in two holes so you can attach the hose to the lid and it is meant to spray out evenly and do the work for you in mixing it right.  Not sure what I did, but could not seem to get which holes were meant to be filled and which one open, and then the hose attachment was too big so had to man handle it on so not quite the one handed with ease job I expected.  I got thoroughly wet into the bargain, - jeans only clean on that morning and then I read at the end, you are not meant to get any of this stuff on your body .... arrrgh and a shower later, with jeans in the washing machine, and then another ten days to see if the stuff is working.  I think it is, though most of the lawn seems to be dead looking.  I must say - it would appear what I thought may have been ok grass was in fact weeds, who knows with aussi lawns, lol

One product I do love is those inside continuous bug sprays ( I have two on the go at anyone time).  I have become so accustomed to them going now I no longer hear the little pfft they give out most of the time, so become blissfully unaware when they run out, and often only notice when an insect has the temerity to appear in the house.  This happened a couple of weeks ago when a fly flew past me while I was sitting on the couch reading a book ..... and worse, when I lifted up the venetian blinds in my room to see a large spider on the window almost in front of my nose.  Wearing glasses I sometimes have difficulty in perspective now so was not entirely sure whether the spider was inside or outside at first.  LUCKILY for me, I decided to get fly spray just as my hand was reaching out to tap on the glass.  Again I reached for  a one spray kills all  with one spray can under the sink and let a goodly blast off towards the window.  Nothing happened for what seemed to be a millennium, and then the spider moved at speed across the window and up.  I removed myself to the bedroom doorway, across the side of the room and continued to aim at the window with more blasts.  The flaming thing shot higher up onto the ceiling.  Hmmm I thought, it is going to where the air is clearer as the poison droplets were drifting to the floor.  Right, now for the sucker punch,  I moved ever so slightly inside the doorway, and sprayed the remainder of the can upwards at length as I emptied the can and my fingers got cramp (slight exaggeration but not by much, lol).  I left the room as the spider was still moving across the ceiling and went back some time later to find it had flipping well dropped dead, with its legs curled, onto my bed, thus necessitating me having to sleep in the back room until the next day when I was very sure it was dead and able to be knocked by a long handled broom onto the floor, before being sucked up by the vacuum cleaner.  While the dying process was occurring I had checked to find one of the continuous sprayers was empty, none in the house to replace so a quick trip to the shop to buy several more plus batteries for the nozzles to spray.  I am happy to report I am insect free once again. :)

Just looked at the time and gotta go to work so will sign off for now :):)