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What are you up to today? This week?


heidiiiii

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8 hours ago, havanaholly said:

Rodents are vectors for all sorts of nasty illnesses, and I have absolutely no problem killing feral ones.

Mice have some way of getting into the house through the master bath. I keep a baited trap near the beginning of their route. I hate the sound of the SNAP! but so it goes. So far this year, Kathie 4, Mice 0.

If I could find the entryway I'd plug it, but so far no luck. 

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I found rodent feces on the floor of the upstairs living quarters of Brimble's (still under construction, but the shingling is finally done and I'm back to furnishing & store fixtures), so I have a trap baited under the work table; nothing so far, and I've not found how they're getting into the workshop.

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Read something wild in the paper today. This mom put a frozen pizza in her oven for dinner, then 10 minutes later noticed an awful smell. Well, she cracked the oven open and found there had been a large snake on the bottom of the oven and it was now slow roasting. She closed the oven, told hubby to take care of it, and went out to dinner with the kids. He scooped that thing up and then set the oven on self clean. I'd want to know how it got in there in the first place, and how you could not notice it when you opened the door?!

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Snakes can be sneaky. In a house I rented in Virginia, there was a metallic odor in the kitchen for several days. I could not ascertain the source. Then one day a friend came to visit. I was upstairs in the office and hollered for her to come on up, which she did. Then she asked why I had a snake in the kitchen. Huh? Sure enough, there was a black snake that was a bit over 8 feet long stretched sinuously on the floor beside the kitchen island (No, I did not measure it; I knew the island was 8 feet long). I grabbed the broom and herded it out the back door. Apparently it had come up from the dirt floored basement through an opening beside the drain pipe under the sink and had been living under there. Once he/she left, so did the metallic odor.

If the snake in the article was a black snake/rat snake and the interior of the was oven black, I can see how the wife would miss it. 

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Poor snake!  I preheat my oven before I pop anything into it to cook, so I wonder she didn't smell the odor of baked reptile sooner.  When we lived in Jacksonville, FL, I used to get rat snakes in my laundry room, and once had to coax one out of my washing machine onto a broom handle so I could release her in the ligustrum along our fence.

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7 hours ago, havanaholly said:

...  I wonder she didn't smell the odor of baked reptile sooner. ...rat snakes in my laundry room,

I'm not sure roasting snake would have much odor. I suspect the spicy pizza odor may have masked it. (Or maybe she did detect an odor but put it off to not having cleaned the oven recently. :D )

In another Virginia house, this one being one I owned, I had some electrical work done in the basement, where the laundry was located. A day or so later I went down with a basket of laundry and thought the electrician had left a cable draped over the wash machine. Nope. Large black snake. I, too, grabbed a broom handle and carried the snake outside. That snake was heavy! When I had a deck added to the house some time later, the workers found a nest of rat snakes when they demolished the concrete stoop. Luckily I was there at the time and stopped them from killing the lot. They weren't happy with me, but they did relocated the little wigglers to the woods a bit away from the house. 

And then there was the huge rat snake that ate my favorite toad. It scaled the big oak tree in our back yard in Missouri. There was a deformity in the tree about 25' up that formed a natural basin to collect rainwater. The snake would curl up in nature's spa to re-hydrate. Snake bodies are roughly 80% water, whereas humans are roughly 60% water.

Which is probably more than you want to know about snakes, so I'll stop now.

 

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19 minutes ago, KathieB said:

...Which is probably more than you want to know about snakes, so I'll stop now.

Snakes chow down on rodents and each other, especially poisonous ones, so I tolerate them a whole lot better than feral rodents!  We had a basement laundry room in our Gainesville, GA, house, and I used a ton of bug spray on the critter that set up next to my washing machine. Normally I'm also tolerant of spiders, but this one was large, black and had a bright red hourglass shape on her tummy that keyed us to the fact that she was not welcome.

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15 hours ago, blueirishmoon said:

how you could not notice it when you opened the door?!

I asked myself the same thing once! I always check the playpens before I let the cats out yet awhile back I completely missed the snake on the front porch when I took out the trash until I wanted to get back in. Go figure!

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I have finally finished washing clothes and emptying the kitchen box from our trip this last week to Birmingham, AL.  We wanted to go back to the art museum and the Jazz Hall of Fame, and hopefully do a little hiking at Oak Mountain State Park, and the motel we stayed at had suite-type rooms.  I didn't need to use my kitchen box, the room came equipped with most things and they served an edible free breakfast downstairs.  The bed was even comfortable!  The first thing we did when we got there Monday (in driving rain all the way up) was to find the new REI store and shop!

The art museum was an all-day visit, and I wish it hadn't rained because there is a huge display of Chihuly flowers at the top of the entry staircase.  The whole museum was wonderful!  That was Tuesday.  The hubs used to be foundry engineer back when there were foundries in operation, so Wednesday, while still overcast, wasn't rainy and we went to the Sloss Furnaces and toured the pour sheds and furnaces; there is a sculpture garden full of wonderful pieces.  This only took a few hours, so we stopped at Vulcan Park on the way back and toured their little museum, which had one room describing the making of the Vulcan statue and the rest was devoted to women in the factories during World War II and the civil rights movement.  There we also learned that the Jazz Hall of Fame is closed for renovation, which was a disappointment, but the building had been in terrible shape when we went before; definitely an incentive to go again.  Thursday was still overcast and spitting rain off & on, but we had heard about a southern flight museum in Birmingham, and since the shooting at NAS Pensacola last month has closed the base and the Naval Aviation Museum thereon, we went to get our airplane fix.  In addition to displays devoted to women pilots and the Tuskegee Airmen there was a 1:1 diorama of the defection of North Korean fighter pilot Lt No Kim Sok, since the first US airman he met and shook hands with was from Mobile, AL.  We came home in gorgeously clear, sunny weather on Friday and I was met with all the unwashed laundry I didn't do because I was so busy getting stuff together for the trip.

The only downside for me was that none of the museum stores had any mini items; I was really looking especially for a cast iron Vulcan statuette.

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We spent last week in Key West for the first time. The weather was warmer than usual there that week, which was nice. We stopped for lunch on the drive from the Ft. Lauderdale airport down through the keys, and DH thinks he got a case of food poisoning. Let's just say there's no need to go into the nasty details. My lunch was quite tasty, though. 

While in Key West I wanted to try a sloppy joe at Sloppy Joes, even though I don't particularily care for sloppy joes. I really enjoyed their sloppy joe sandwich so now I need to come up with a recipe that tastes like theirs.

Since we were having a "heat wave" in New England when we left, which was to continue through the week, I left my really warm winter coat at home and took a lighter weight coat with a liner. It was 19 degrees when we returned to Boston Logan airport on Friday night. On Sunday night I came down with a bad cold from a bug I caught on the flight or our last day on vacation, feeling a bit better now. I haven't had a cold in a long time, so I guess that's why this one really hit me hard.

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The hubs and I spent a week in Key West several years ago.  The bed & breakfast we stayed in (not much on breakfast, but lots of nearby restaurants that opened for breakfast, so no loss) named its rooms for various authors and stocked each room with its namesake's books;  We stayed in the Margaret Truman room and I became a fan of her mystery novels.

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I want to go to Key West. After the rainstorms we had at Christmas, we then got SNOW about 2 weeks ago! I got about an inch the first night, then 5 inches a couple days later, then another couple of inches the next day. Then it started to rain (got rid of the snow all right) and it's been raining non-stop since then. All our roads are flooded. It's been so much fun. Not. I had put out 4 plastic buckets (the humanure thing is over - poop in sawdust is going out with the trash now) and they been out there for about a week and a half. This morning I went to rinse them out (how silly) and they each had 4 GALLONS OF WATER IN THEM! They were rinsed. No problem. 

I'm going to get a 4-sided screen and next time it's pouring like this, I'm going to go out and take a shower and wash my hair. Honestly, it can't be any colder than just going to get water and getting soaked doing that. I was out for 15 minutes today and my hair looks like I just washed it. 

I'm getting a little tired of rain. And the trailer is leaking, but I'll admit, with the rain we've gotten, the Ark would have leaked.

 

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29 minutes ago, rodentraiser said:

I'm getting a little tired of rain

I hear you, Kelly. I don't have to deal with a leaking abode, but cold and damp-to-wet is not my idea of great weather. 

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We got a dehumidifier for our little RV and it runs when we're not on the road and one of us goes out and empties the bucket every few days.  No leaks, but moisture will condense inside and sprout mildew.

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It's been lovely hearing about how things are going with you Kelly!

Well I've just spent the night at my Uncle's bedside in hospital.  He had a massive heart attack yesterday which basically took out his liver and kidneys.  The kids and I spent till about 1.30am with him and then I sent them home and stayed till about 10am this morning.  He's been unconscious since about 2am.  The Dr this morning told me it could take days so I came home to shower, eat and sleep.  Trouble is the hosp is a 50min drive each way - but it is what it is.  He was moved to a ward this morning so I'll go back late afternoon evening and spend another hour or two with him.  He's a special man and has been like a granddad to my kids.  We knew we wouldn't have much longer, and to be fair I think that this heart attack is actually a blessing.  But I did hope his passing would be gentle and easy....if he stays the way he was when we left this morning, it's peaceful even if it's longer than I thought.  Ah well....it is what it is.

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Thank you all, your thoughts and prayers are much appreciated.  He was quite awake and aware today which was nice but sad at the same time.  At times it was difficult to understand what he needed - made me feel exceptionally in adequate.  I'm really hoping that he doesn't have to suffer too long.

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