On The Road Again

Well, we have done a bit of traveling since I posted last. We went down to Yuma for two months, We rented a trailer for November and December as we didn't want to start up the water and sewer at the house.
We packed up pretty much all of our clothes and a few other things we wanted to take home. We started the power and bought a monitored security system. We bought internet from the neighbor and that turned out to be a very expensive undertaking, for us of course.
We did some visiting but most of our time was spent packing up stuff and some running around for business issues while we were there.
The weather was mostly cool for that time of the year and we only had a small electric heater in the trailer. No furnace.
We had originally decided to sell but prices were not very good so we decided to wait.
We are going camping for a week or so tomorrow, so will write more after we return.

July 4th

Hope you all are having a great Independence Day!! Today is America's 238th birthday and we have enjoyed many holiday's and sites throughout the years touring around your great country. Hopefully we will have the opportunity to come back.

Happy Canada Day!!

Hope everyone had a good day.  We did something different this year.  Instead of going to the cake cutting and car show in the heat,.we went to the museum, where they have a miniature working sawmill set up.  It was inside a large room and nice and cool in the building. It gets started up once or twice a year. Two guys, one of whom we used to work with, run it. They explained all of the different sections, machines and their purpose. They also answered any questions. The kids were very interested and asked a lot of questions.

Back on The Horse Again

Well, it has been a long time since I posted anything on my blog.  A lot has happened, especially with my health and having to deal with problems and issues as a result.
I hope to put some thoughts together and start posting again. Maybe I will start off with the rest of my life story, going back to where I left off when I was young.
I really want to thank my family and wonderful husband for all their support, care and concern  as well.

Common Sense Rules

WELCOME TO REAL LIFE!

Rule 1 : Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2 : The world doesn't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: They called it opportunity.

Rule 6 : If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7 : Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were: So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room..

Rule 8 : Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. *This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.*

Rule 9 : Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. *Do that on your own time.

Rule 10 : Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

I read these common sense rules somewhere and decided to post it.  So true!!

Positive thoughts

Three small rules for living a happy life

1. Start each day with a grateful heart.
2. Focus on the positive aspects of every person you encounter.
3. End each day with a grateful heart.

Lucy MacDonald

Canada Day

                                      

Happy Birthday Canada!!
Here are a few pics of some of the festivities in our community.

Oh Crap!!!!

Does it ever end?  Yet another one!  Looks like they had three kids as this one looks pretty young too.  So, another relocation is happening as we speak.  Maybe we should start up a squirrel trapping business. 

I wonder, how hard is it to skin a squirrel?  We would be well on our way to a nice fur hat or maybe some warm mitts by now. (Just kidding!)  Sure hope this is the end of critter trapping, but I somehow have a feeling it won't be.

Success! (at least so far)

Well, it looks like the freeloading squirrels have been evicted.  No scampering and scratching noises overnight or this morning.  Both the traps are still vacant, but we will continue to monitor those as well.  It appears they were a family of four, two kids and Mom and Pop..

The first two to be caught and relocated were smaller and quite young looking compared to the next two.  They were also very curious and mischievous and didn't seem to be afraid of us either.  The last one was larger than all the rest, so it was either daddy squirrel or fat mama getting ready to present us with more problems.

All four were released at the same location, so maybe they were able to have a  family celebration or big reunion of some sort before taking on the task of preparing a new home for the coming winter.  Hopefully they stay in the forest and don't find another attic to inhabit.

And The Saga Continues!!!

Gulliver is now on squirrel release mission #4.  This last one was caught today in the middle of the afternoon and was very determined to get away. You could feel it throwing itself against the pipe trying to escape.

The warm weather also must have dried the oil some because he was walking up toward the top.  I looked in to see him and it was about one and a half feet from the top.  I knocked him back down, quickly sprayed  inside the top of the pipe with vegetable oil and then put a bag and elastic over the top.

How many more can there be?  We're hoping NONE, but we will continue to set the traps out.  I am really getting worried now about how much of a mess has been made with the insulation in the attic.

The people are coming to do the new gutters and soffits on Monday and we will be able to see how the insulation is then.  Plus there will be no more access points after all that gets done.

Squirrel Update!

Here is squirrel #2.  I never thought this was going to work!  I was saying, here we go again, another $26 down the drain . This thing is fairly simple to make.  It is just a length of plastic sewer pipe, cut in half so that each length is about 5 feet.  Then cap one end of each piece.  Put some seeds or squirrel bait in the bottom.  Then liberaly coat the inside of the pipe with vegetable oil and stand it up where you know the squirrels are travelling.  The guy at the store said to use peanut butter for bait, so we did.

Yesterday, right after I posted, I got Craig to go out and check the trap again.  Lo and behold, there was a squirrel in it. I was some surprised.  Poor little guy was dripping in oil from trying to get up the tube which was too slippery.  He looked pretty funny.

So Craig took the pipe with the squirrel at the bottom and stood it up in the cab of the truck and took it for a little ride about 5 kms away.  When Craig lowered the pipe it took off like a rocket.

So after Craig got back from his little journey, he readied the trap again and put it back in the same spot.  At six in the morning he checked, but no squirrel.  Right after breakfast he checked again and yup, squirrel #2.

So off for another ride to the same spot for release into his new home in the wild.  Same scene, took off like a rocket.  I'm sure they found each other and will be very busy licking the oil from each others fur for a day or two at least.

Haven't seen a squirrel all day and I sure do miss them.  NOT!!!

Pesky Critters!

Yes, we have pesky little critters.  Two of them.  And they are squirrels, but that's not what I call them.  They are very content and think they have a nice home.  They seem to prefer the upstairs attic over the lower one.  But I have a surprise in store for them.

After we got back home in early April, Craig was visiting with the neighbor at the back and he mentioned that he saw a squirrel coming out of the upper corner of our house.  We didn't really take him too seriously, but checked the vent screens around the whole house and couldn't see any holes.

So life went on and then some of our guests in the front bedroom starting saying they thought they sometimes heard scratching noises in the night and it sounded like it was coming from the area where the eaves meets the roof line.

Then we were sitting in the living room visiting and the two of them were running around on the front walkway and trying to shimmy up the garage man door. When we went outside to investigate, one of them was sitting in the rain gutter over the front door trying to enter through a hole in the screen and into the soffitt.

So we got some tin and blocked it up.  Then we started seeing them playing all over the roof. We shooed them away and starting investigating for access points where they could be getting in. HA! We found about four holes in the screens.

They weren't shy either.  They would come and play on the deck and around the pool and back door, as well as the front walkway and drive. Craig would get the camera and they would just stand there while he took their picture.  If they were on the roof they would run from the front to the back playing catch me if you can with us.

Here are some pictures of our pesky little critters.

After that Craig went outside the patio doors just in time to see it walking straight up the wall and into the hole it made in the screen and then sit in the soffitt looking down at us. We have seen it do this many times since.  I used to think they were cute, but not so much anymore.

So we are getting new gutters, fascia and aluminum soffitts all around and then the attics will be completely sealed.  In the meantime, Craig went online and found a site for homemade squirrel traps. So we did that, but nothing is going in so far. Oh, life is so much fun.  Spend, spend and spend some more!!  Hold on, I 'll be right back. I have to go give my money tree some water.