Fall "free-for-all"

As it's gotten colder, it is getting more and more crowded around here! Just this month alone, we have had yellowjackets in the dining room, ants in the pantry, crickets in the garage and the deer once again chomping on my cherry tree out front. The yellowjackets in the house were the worst of it. After finding one or two per day for quite a while, Roger went down to the basement a few days ago to bring up the Halloween decorations and discovered a dessert plate-sized nest in the basement, just beneath the dining room floor. Once the exterminator came, we found out there was a second nest that was three times the size of the first. Yikes! They have since been evicted and we are going to be a lot more cautious when we find even one in the house the next time. Just imagining how many there could have been come spring gives me chills...

Perhaps the most annoying are the ants which have recently discovered a veritable Disneyland of dining opportunities, lured by nothing more than a crumb of candy corn. Just one little morsel of sweetness had fallen underneath the pantry shelves...someone was doing some sneaky snacking!... and it led an army of ants right to their happiest place on earth. They were doing the wave in the Wheat Thins, cavorting in the Cinnamon Toast Crunch, playing in the potato rolls...and we wanted them OUT!!! I went online and found a tip that said the only way to be rid of them was to remove the odor of food by plasticizing everything. Several eco-unfriendly hours later we had a pantry full of hermetically-sealed ziploc bags of food. Not to mention two garbage bags filled with boxes of still edible yet ant-infested food that I am quite certain in people in third world countries would have gladly eaten. So far, so good...they seem to have reprogrammed their GPS's...gastronomic positioning devices...and have not returned. The crickets in the garage are a lot easier to deal with, especially if you are quick enough to grab one of the dozens are shoes strewn on the floor before they scoot away. Convenient clutter. At least they haven't hopped their way into the house...yet...

The deer and I have reached a detente...I love watching them when I am up early or late enough to see them on their nocturnal raids. I don't even mind their munching on my mums. One morning just after the bus left at 6:30am, I saw a mama and two babies strolling down the street. I also love how my weeping cherry tree graces the front flower bed, despite the fact that it is the tastiest of deer treats. Once the branches start looking too sparse, however, the anti-deer spray comes out and the snack bar is closed for the season!

Looking on the bright side, at least we don't have scorpions, like my friends out in AZ. None that I have discovered yet, anyway... P.S. So, what's bugging you these days? ;o)