SPIDERS, MICE AND OTHER NASTIES

I've lived 37 years in Murphys, 26 of them in this house and I had never had a mouse in the house. Tilt!  Except for a cat who loved hunting mice and would bring them in through the cat door, and play with them until they escaped somewhere to die in peace.

Fast forward, no cat. Two of these live uninvited beasties plagued me for almost two weeks before I managed to outwit them. They seemed to have secret knowledge of all mouse traps and attractants. Once gone, I bought three sonic pest repellers and plugged them in. They are designed to repel spiders, mites, mosquitoes, roaches, and other nasties. It is a fact that when you remove an active spider web, if you don't kill the bugger, it will rebuild its web the next day. Hmm! How do I know if this thing works as I see a spider happily spinning its web?

Online I read that sound waves do not bend around corners, or work through walls and furniture.


With some effort I managed to prop them in high positions. Looks ugly as hell. I will have to move them occasionally to cover my big rooms. But yesterday, I found six spiders, big and little exiting (with suitcases in hand), trying to get under my outside door in my bedroom. And, later, when I went to take a shower, two more were hiding under a plastic bucket I keep to collect water for plants. (Part of our drought relief program.)


Voila!  They work. I'm ordering two more for my garage.

HOME IS NEVER LIKE YOU LEFT IT.

Amtrak to Sacramento was a breeze. Got to Sacramento Knee and Sports Medicine on March 9th, to have Dr. Wang, a shoulder expert advise me. I was given a cortisone shot without a definite answer yet about surgery. So, its a wait, wait situation, but,  if surgery can be avoided, its worth the wait.

Murphys seemed relatively unchanged. Yet, I knew a heavy snowstorm accosted the area on February 12 while I was gone. The power was out for 72 hours. Fixed as quickly as possible by PG&E. With the live line across my driveway and orchard gone, only the telephone lines were left lying waiting for AT&T. It took them 9 days to restore phone service. That strikes me as a misuse of the word service. They apologized and made promises they didn't keep. And, from a bill of $84?  My credit amounted to $6 for internet and phone services. Doesn't compute. Being angry with the phone company is a lost cause. Then, when I attempted to blog yesterday?  It seems my modem was not working. I suspect the loss of service to be part of the problem.

So, even though all the lights light up, it won't take the signal from AT&T. And, the AT&T repair service did not reset this modem after the lines were down. They want to sell me another modem for $100. One that has horrible reviews by users. I'd be three to five days without service, unless I pay a premium to have it mailed overnight. I drove to Sonora and bought one off the shelf that AT&T told me they would not support or help connect for me.

My Linksys router that allows me wireless reception gave up the ghost around Christmastime. Its only given me about 3 years of service.
So, I bought a replacement for it. Its a nifty device called a Cisco Valet.

At $79, not cheap, but really user friendly.
So, now add the new modem for another $75. Is this a racket? My friend Jerry observes he has his old Royal Typewriter in his garage that still works like a champ and its 60 years old. Does make you wonder.

So, here is the new Zoom X-5 modem. I'm up and on-line. But, it hasn't figured out how to communicate with the new Cisco Valet, so I'm hard-wired to this modem and must blog from my office. All wireless capability is lost. I'll leave that for another day and be thankful I can check my mail and see to my blog. Basically, yesterday, besides shopping for a modem and filling my refrigerator,  I killed all the spiders that moved in while I was gone. I don't spray, but one on one? Wham! They are history.

AN UNUSUAL SPIDER APPEARED.

Yesterday, Karen discovered an unusual spider in the yard. She had seen it several times while I was gone and it made another appearance. I've lived here 33 years and have never seen a spider like this one. If anyone knows what kind of spider this is, please let me know. It has fake eyes on what looks like a shell back. Its legs are fuzzy and it is a dull orange in the fading light. Karen says in sunlight it is bright orange and yellow. I'm not an arachnophobe, but I certainly didn't want to tangle with this one. If its an invasive species, I want to kill it. Anyone???

Murphys has its grape stomp, other places celebrate Oktoberfest, or St. Patricks Day. Most small towns have a festival of some type. They are all fun, very individual, usually featuring food and drink of some kind. We've had the privilege of attending a number of them during our 16,000 mile trip. The gator race at New Iberia, LA, in March, was one of those festivals. Just the idea of a gator race kind of sets your mind to wondering? You can't help but smile when you see them.

People bring their dogs, kids, and, well, I don't know what this reptile is, but its cute.

This young man gave me his alligator beads.

Everybody of all ages danced to the great Cajun music.

BULLET HOLES AND BOB CATS

Its been an eventful month. We had a bob cat on the front porch in broad daylight, which tells me the wild things are hungry. Neighbor Karen threw a rock at it for fear they were drooling over her cats. That is the second bob cat this month.
We had a 13 hour power outage last week and a temporary problem Monday night. I'm pleased to say we all have electricity now, but when I returned from Manteca yesterday, I found bullet holes in my front window.
We do get a stray bullet from hunters now and again, but these two, on closer inspection, turned out to be bullet hole decals.
Aha! I instantly decoded who could have done the dastardly deed. My neighbor, Jan Stewart, the likely perpetrator.
Several years ago, a neighbor went on vacation and Jan convinced me that we should plan a little "surprise" for their homecoming. Jan laid down on neighbor Clement's driveway and I drew around her body with chalk. Then we blocked off their driveway with "crime scene" tape. Oh, it was such fun!
The neighborhood has never been the same since, especially near Halloween.
Last week she asked me if I had placed the bloody arm on her gate post? "No, not me!"

She didn't ask if I had put "The Witches Inn" sign on her front door. Hee, hee, hee.
I found a small decorated pumpkin on my newspaper box right after.
In past years I've found huge spiders in my bed, a large rat in my cupboard, a giant spider hanging from my shower spout.
The war is on! Shoot me some dastardly ideas, folks. I gotta get her back!