Monday, December 14, 2009

Too Much for a Monday!

It was a long day today! It started with us getting up late, and my being late for work. Added to that we have a new staff member in the office where I work. She is really very nice, and certainly knows her way around a dental office, but she's driving me and a few others a bit crazy because she's so high energy and very very chatty!

So at the end of the day it was nice to have some quiet time on the hour-drive home from work. It was a good thing I rested up because one of our senior boys, Cowboy, wandered off in the dark. Fortunately he is about 14 years old, not very fast and so he hadn't wandered too far! It was easy to find him with the help of a flashlight. ~whew!!~ But Sheba who was also running around in the dark returned full of fox-tails in her coat. They were so tangled in her tail that I decided that it was probably best to cut out the ones I couldn't pull out. As you can see, I had to cut out quite a bit of hair...Her tail certainly isn't as pretty as it was, but it'll grow back...eventually...

After that job, and feeding the dogs, I went into the garage to get a "dog-towel" out of an old dresser we have. Underneath the towel, the drawer was full of stink-bugs!! We got hit with them late last summer and I'm not exaggerating when I say that they covered the side of our house! Of course they would get inside when you opened the door, it was really awful!!! Pesticides don't kill them, it just makes them fly away, and if you're standing there, they get all over you. As a result you just have to learn to put up with them. I did get better towards the end of fall, and would pick-up one (yes, just one!) and toss it out the door--It doesn't do any good to kill them because it just brings up their odor, which is a musky-rotten smell...I read in the paper that they accidentally came to this country from Asia and don't like the cold weather at all and have a hard time surviving it. So I was really glad when the colder weather came and they started to die off; their little corpses are everywhere, especially in our garage. But I continue to find them inside the house too. They do try to survive the winter and will get into anything to stay warm, and they seem to do it in groups--But even though they are moving a bit slower, I wonder if these unwelcome visitors will ever stop showing up. I can only hope...Remind me why I love the country again?? :-)

8 comments:

  1. Wow, I learned something new! I will never kill one again; at least not near the house!
    Yes, weird things happen when you live in the country! Two summers ago a skunk got in our cellar. Yep, and decided to spray. OMG, it woke us out of a dead sleep. It took months for that odor to slink away!! Skunk as roadkill smells nothing like the hideous smell we had in our home!

    I wish your family a beautiful Holiday in the country. Stink bugs and all!
    Blessings, Misha

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  2. Hello Kim
    Nice to see you the other day and read your lovely comment.
    These 'stink bugs' are a world wide problem, we have them on citrus fruit trees down here, very evident in the Spring and Summer. Lots of people say they vacuum them off the leaves and branches (yes thats what I said lol) and then dispose of them in the rubbish in a sealed cleaner bag. I don't have a lemon or orange tree so its not a problem for me.
    Love reading about the day to day lives of your lovely dogs - good luck with the eye treatment for Tanner, lets hope it really works.
    Had to laugh at trying to find the dog in the dark with the torch - one of our Burmese cats is a Brown (called Sable in USA circles) her coat is very deep glossy brown and its fun - I don't think - trying to find her in the dark She knows she shouldn't be out then but if its windy she manages to evade me when its coming in time and plays games in the bushes - seems to know I cna't see her. When calling her doesn't work I have to resort to looking in the bushes with the torch, then she miraculously wanders up behind me - I know full well she's been hiding somewhere watching me as I get more and more annoyed lol
    Take care
    Cathy

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  3. Just came across your blog and I think I could read forever. What a hoot to see all those dogs on your front porch..I love it! Someone dumped a golden retreiver near our house and Jasper's now a permanent fixture among our menagerie.

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  4. I could give you a plethera of reasons why you love the country. The first two words that come to mind are....city traffic!! Greenville, NC is probably just over a quarter of a million people, not a big city by a lot of standards. But I hate my drive home from one side of town to the other just to get to Winterville, where I live in the coutry...ish. Not in town, anyway! LOL ~Randy

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  5. Hey Guys,
    Fellow Virginians here from just down the road a piece by Lake Anna in Louisa County; the bustling metropolis of Bumpass. We didn't know that there were any other packs like ours is such close proximity. We came across your comment on Mogley's blog under unfortunate circumstance. We are still in shock over the death of Agnes. It is such a sad situation. Fortunately Mogley, Bella, the Chauffer and the House Keeper gave Agnes the loving and caring home that she was searching for.
    It sounds like y'all have as many mis-adventures as we all do down here. Jubal is always taking off on "walks" to the lake to go swimming (our side is heated year round) and he always brings back fox tail stickers. Dad has been walking the neighborhood more than one night with the big flashlight search for either Jubal or Sophie or Homer. homer doesn't have out front privileges anymore becuase of his tendency to vacate the front yard. We don't seem to have the stink bug problem here but we sure have a deer tick problem. Our mom and dad are going out of town tonight but will be back Sunday night and we plan on exploring your back blog posts. Dad is always crossing through I-64 doing rescue transports for Almost Heaven Golden Retriever Rescue and Sanctuary up in Delray, WV. We have a blind dog in our pack, Radar, and we had a blind brother, Gordon, who went to The Rainbow Bridge, two years ago this coming January 20th, when he was like 16 years old. Mom and dad rescued him when he was 10 and totally blind. Radar is also a rescue who was born blind, his eyes never fully developed. Heck, maybe next summer y'all can come down for a swimming and picnic play date. Dad says it's funny how Northern VA people describe their distance from D.C. in time units rather than distance units. He used to work in Crytsal City and mom worked at the Navy Yard and in the Pentagon before moving to a job at Quantico. She is retired now and going to LVT school out at Blue Ridge Community College on I-81. Hopefully you're west of D.C. and we can travel rurally and not on I-95. We'll catch y'all next week.
    - Homer J., Jubal, J.E.B., Sophie, Shelby Belle, Jackson, Abby, Max, Shiloh, Radar, Alex, Boru and Jenny = The Bumpass Hounds and Kitties (TBH&K)

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  6. Stink Bugs!!!!
    Just the name sounds horrible.
    The weather here can get so cold,
    -30C with the wind chill, so it is hard for a lot of different types of bug to survive. That's a blessing.
    We were hit hard years ago with earwigs at the old house but again they have died out somewhat from the freezing temp.

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  7. I have never heard of stink bugs......I pray and hope I never see one either!!

    Gill in Canada

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Speak--I really enjoy your comments! Thanks for stopping by today!!