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Ordinarily you can give your kitchen counters a lick and a promise, load dirty dishes into the dishwasher, and wipe the stove from spills — but if it's spring, the ant scouts will find that tiny bit of orange juice on top of the cutting board or the piece of sweet cereal that dropped on the floor, and go back to tell the others of the bonanza he's found at your house. Ants are crazy about sweets and will take advantage of ripening fruit of any kind, a lid left out after the hoisin sauce is gone, or the ketchup bottle if you leave it out on the table. Spring is worse because they are looking for a ready supply of food so they can nest and make babies nearby. I've tried yelling at them. I've tried pleading. I've tried threatening. I've tried rubbing fresh garlic or fresh onion on the counter. I've tried banging a lid on the counter. All to no avail; they keep sending new scouts that always seem to come when you are not in the kitchen. But I have found, when I get totally frustrated, that my red spray bottle of kitchen cleaner is the perfect anticide. I just spray it on the counter when I first come into the kitchen, ants and all. Using a paper towel to wipe it off, dead ants and all, I feel like I've put a little less poison into the ecosystem than if I had sprayed a bug killer or specific ant poison. One spray usually does it, especially if I continue to be careful with cleanliness. Speaking of spring, what a perfect time for Canadian geese heading north to find a nesting place in your front yard, especially if you have a pond or creek nearby. Why they can't rest and nest near the pond is beyond me, but I guess they like the cool shade and classy grass in front as much as we do. As stupid as geese are by human standards, they can be trained. As with children and ants, you have to be consistent. Each morning at 7 (or 6:30 if you're really lucky) the geese will make their morning noises. You'll have to fly downstairs, out the front door (grabbing your broom as you go), and make like a big noisy predator, chasing the geese toward the pond, at least away from the front yard. It helps to wave your arms in a flapping motion and go "Wooh! Woo–ooh" like Alex's bear did in James Whitcomb Riley's "The Bear Story." The gander will try to protect his mate by separating from her, forcing you to decide which one to chase. If you continue to go after the female (the one with the biggest belly, swollen with unlaid eggs), most often to get out of your way both will use their wings to do a flying walk. If you throw a small stick in their direction along with the a loud "Wooh" they will often fly off. After two or three weeks of chasing them out of the front yard — at 11 am, 3 pm, and 7 pm as well as in the early morning — usually they will decide it's too dangerous a place to nest and will choose a more suitable location. In some New Jersey towns there are laws forbidding the feeding of geese because of their terribly messy droppings. Where I live, out in the country, there is plenty of natural food and the same messy droppings. Training your geese is the only way to avoid their taking over your private people space. Mice, also, need to be taught their place. They are most likely to want to come into your kitchen in the fall, to find a warm place to spend the winter, though out in the country they like to sample your cooking any time of the year. In the beginning of my sojourn in the country I tried to consider the animal rights aspect of mouse removal by using live traps. I got my neighbor to empty them on the edge of the property. Sometimes I was catching three or four a day! Eventually I figured out that they enjoyed the ride out and the run back inside for another ride as much as my teenagers enjoyed lining up for a roller coaster ride at Great Adventure. I made a unilateral decision, then, that my right as an animal of higher consciousness and intellect to have a rodent-less place to prepare food was just as important as the lives of the mice. Using a Zen idea of what to do before taking the life of another living thing, I declared in a loud voice three times that their lives were in danger if they continued to come into my kitchen. I set my first regular old-fashioned mousetrap (I came to like the "cheese" kind best). Carefully each morning I gathered my captured prey into a plastic bag, trap and all, and disposed of it in the dumpster. Eventually they figured out that my kitchen drawers and cupboards were not such a good place to be, though every fall a new training program has to begin. Ah, squirrels. those cute fuzzy grey and brown animals that eat nuts and can scamper up trees and jump from branch to branch. They, also, like to find a safe, dry place to winter over and have their babies in the spring. Woe to those who let the fascia boards near the roof line rot and weaken, for they may find those scampering feet overhead for months to come. Once a squirrel family has taken up residence in your attic or crawl space, it is quite trying to get rid of them. They will hang in and protect themselves with fierce determination. I remember my father telling me about a squirrel that had gotten into their garage when he was about ten. He, also, thought it was cute and fuzzy like the family cat, but when he approached the cornered squirrel to pick it up and pet it, he was attacked, scratched, gouged, and scarred. I was scarred, too, from hearing him tell his story and accompanying admonitions about squirrels. Once when I had a rotten board covered up in a temporary fashion to keep the birds and squirrels out, one squirrel was left behind in the crawl space over my office. I could hear him gnawing and scratching to the point of my complete paranoia that he would come in through the ceiling and get me. I finally had some local young men crawl in there to set a trap, but by then, he had made another hole and gotten out. Did he learn? Only time will tell. In the meantime I have set about to replace the rotten boards and large spaces where critters can come in to the house, letting those who do try to come in know that they are not welcome. I have rights, too.
April 19, 2003 |
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The best time to get your roof done is in the fall, or whenever rain is most likely to come in your locality. Then you just set aside three weeks of your life to have a vacation from normality, and let the work begin. This is assuming you have successfully negotiated a contract with a reputable and honest individual or firm. I have found that local contractors (I refer to carpenters, electricians, painters, roofers, and other specialty contractors as well as the more general repair contractors) who have been around for a while are as good a place as any to start getting cost estimates on your home building or repair needs. Where I live there is a thriving economy in home building and repairs, due to the exodus from New York after 9/11 as well as the way-above-average income which allows for this sort of thing. Someone who has been in the business of repairing roofs for over thirty years will be able to steer you to someone more appropriate if he is too busy. An electrician who does only new installation can refer you to someone who wires swimming pools in the summer but is always looking for small jobs in the winter. The local paper will often run ads from people wanting work of various sorts. Friends and neighbors can also give you suggestions for local contractors they have used. Often a young person just starting out will work more cheaply and more thoroughly, and will be more accommodating (unless they have a regular job and can only work evenings and weekends, though this might be okay with you). But they're messy. And taller, stronger, more vigorous, more open, more tolerant than their parents. I've used both young and mid-aged contractors. What the one has in experience, the other has in willingness to listen to your ideas. Most contractors have a different kind of value concerning honesty than certainly I do. To them, the answer to your question is what they think you want to hear, or what they think will make you happy, without regard to reality (which is that you would be happy to plan your life around them for a week or two if they would just communicate to you their plan of action, time line, or schedule). For instance, they will say, "Someone will be down tomorrow to fix that up," when they actually mean, "I'm not going to fix that up so get someone else," or "I'm not going to fix that up until I get finished with the job," or some other honest response. That would be too much like giving in to Mother. They can't work on Saturday or Sunday or in the rain, but they also can't work past 3 pm on a sunny day (4 if you negotiate it). In my perfect world they'd work every day the sun shines, from morn to dark (like making hay). Contractors are not the best communicators, either. They say they'll let you know by the end of the day, putting the answering service on to listen to you reiterate your question at 4:25 pm when you call because you haven't heard from them. The boss promises you one thing; the subcontractor on the job tells you another. The office staff doesn't fax the graphic of your complicated driveway and turn around to the slate supplier, who drives across your front lawn and doesn't speak much English to boot. Instead of telling you in the beginning that it will probably be 3 weeks of chaos in your life, they say, "oh, that will only take 4 or 5 days," forgetting to tell you that not only do they not work in the rain, but they also take a day off here and there to start a new job for someone else who is calling their office wanting to know when their leaky roof or faucet is going to get fixed. The reason you schedule your roof replacement work during rainy season is that during rainy days (plus the day after a rain if the roof is too wet to work on) you get to take a long bath or a nap, do your usual morning exercise, eat normally, sleep later than the preferred 7 am starting time, and in general get yourself rebalanced from all the stress. So when the work force returns, you'll be able to deal with the hole in the asphalt in the driveway by your front door, the ruts in the long driveway worn down with all the truck traffic, the large broken branch on the fire thorn bush, and the black mold on the kitchen ceiling — all without losing your cool or falling apart. Or getting angry. The front negotiator in a family run business is often a wife, a mother, or a sister of the boss, and she is often the one who has the largest part of your contact with a contractor for your house. Whether she is family or hired gun, if she is good at her job, she will manage the delicate balance between boss, boss's wife, subcontractors, office staff, suppliers, workers, and you. I believe every good office manager (usually a woman) should get at least a $500 bonus after a difficult job like my recent one was. Our total contact was over a 7-month period of time, and we had not only an unusual job to do, but it also involved a reluctant landlord and his wife. The one time I began to sound a bit hostile to her out of my own frustration, she dished it right back to me, which shut me up quickly. The time I felt like committing suicide she was able to coax me back to a comfortable reality. My hats off to Rita! I hope the contractors who read this will take heed, joining me and other Dr. Phil watchers (try taping it, it's on CBS at 3 pm in the East) in trying to look at ourselves and our behavior in order to become better people. For this my experience will have all been worth it. Plus I have a toasty warm roof that makes me feel like nesting in my wonderful house all over again.
November 23, 2002 |
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I saw two living dead people recently who shouldn't have been. They appeared emaciated and extremely withdrawn from reality. Both were ancient by today's standards, perhaps in their late nineties. Their wheelchairs were being pushed by two attendants who helped the old couple with their breathing tubes, hearing aids, and feeding — to say nothing of personal care like toileting, bathing, and grooming. How many years should a person live? Were these living dead people still on earth because of God's plans? Or by their own choice, real choice? Were they still breathing because they had been too afraid of death to make a logical choice about their own dying process? Had their families decided to keep them alive? If so, why? Or had they allowed a hospital, medical personnel, governmental insurance, and the pharmaceutical megacomplex, which they were financially supporting (as well as those two attendants), dictate their dying? I object. Should our taxes go toward supporting these people? Or should we squander our human resources? Can't our society find something better for those attendants to do? I don't really mean to sound Hitler-like: I don't really want to be the one to decide for others when they should die, just for myself. I know I don't want to be pushed around by some stranger who works at a nursing home and doesn't really care. Conscious dying is certainly better than living in la-la land for years and years, even happy as a lark like my mother was most of the time. When life began to get difficult for her, she was incapable of making any decisions about her own care. Conscious dying is certainly better than living in a physical limbo where you're little more than an injured dog to be carted around and cared for by humans. At least an old or sick dog gets put down with an injection, and they shoot horses, don't they? Aren't people entitled to the same humane treatment? We should fashion our deaths like the "Real People," the Australian aborigines that Marlo Morgan of Missouri lived with, observed, and wrote about in Mutant Message. When it was time for the Real People to die, according to Marlo, they:
Sounds good to me, but I haven't quite figured out how they do it. I have learned how to control my breathing, heartbeat, and temperature. I know how to poison myself with toxic food and toxic air. I could withdraw all my herbal supplements, which provide me with much mental and physical support. I feel peaceful with death. But is it I who decides? Why not? Who better to decide when I will go back to forever?
July 11, 2003
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