Communities

I mentioned having an ant problem. we have another insect issue too, flies. Since we have to keep every window, door and any other openings open, the flies freely come and go, mostly come in, as far as I know they never leave. Yeah I know, we gotta get more screens up, one thing at a time…

Once the sun comes up, the flies start appearing, they buzz by your ears, face. land on you, just basically irritatating… I looked up some homemade fly catchers, I found ones that use clear plastic bottles, you cut the top off, insert it, lid side down into the bottle, you need something inside the bottle that the flies like, set these around and wait for them to fill up. The idea is the flies are attracted by the bait, crawl into the bottle, eat until full, they fly up, the problem is they don’t go back to the middle of the bottle where they came in, they just keep beating their little hairy heads against the top of the bottle, where they can’t get out. Muahahaha (evil laugh!)

Now to America’s Redneck Test Kitchen, I made 5 fly catchers, I placed a different bait into each one, I want to know which one works best. Here is what I placed in each one:

milk
vinegar and sugar
leftover chicken (with a bit of water to keep it from drying up)
leftover cinnamon roll (with a bit of water…)
poop (with a bit of water…)

Yes, that last one is real, I have to know! I set these all side by side, a veritable smorgasboard for the flies, they have their choice now, dairy, sweet & sour, meat, dessert, and poo.

I’ll post the results as they come in.

.

1 Comment

seth said…

LMAO…..good post…too funny

May 27, 2008 1:40 PM

Something light & fun…

15 of the strangest trees you have ever seen, how’d they do that???

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15 stoopidest warning labels, wha???

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15 unfortunately placed ads, funny and sad…
If I still worked at Best Buy, I would do this!

…

Monetizing, what exactly IS that? It’s a way to make money with your website and/or blog. How does it work? Basically you need a website, I believe you have to own your own domain, not a difficult thing to do, next you need something on your website, it can be anything. Next you need to sign up with Google Adsense, there are other ad sites, but I like Google and have stuck with them. Once you sign up with Google Adsense, it takes a while for them to approve your site, that’s why you need something on your site, Google wants to see what your site is all about. It’s best if you don’t have any other ads running on your website, Google does not like to share.

When they finally approve you, patients, they most likely will, eventually… anyhoo, once you are in, then you can start adding ad units to your site. That’s the fun part, it does take some finesse to add the ads in the best place, you want them visible, but not so much IN YOUR FACE that your visitors leave in disgust, see your webpage like your visitors, go to some other web sites, look at ones that you like, look at the ones that you don’t like, try to figure out how to incorporate what you like into your site, don’t use what you don’t like. It’s not rocket science.

Pick out the ad units you want to use, you can choose the size, number of ads per unit, you can customize the colors to match your site. Google decides what your page is about and delivers relative ads, if your page is about purple dinosaurs, then your ads will be about purple dinosaurs and related things. You can also choose to place other things besides ad units, you can choose:

Adsense for Content
These are the regular (and most popular) ad units you see

Adsense for Search
This adds a search box to your site, you can either have it search your site or the web

Referrals
This one allow you to choose specific products or groups of products to advertise on your site, again these are tailored to the content on your site

Video Units
This one is fun, you choose YouTube videos to be viewed on your site, little Google ad unit appears within the video box

The fun part of all this is you, the webmaster get paid for each click, most of the time, you get a few cents per click, but sometimes you get lucky and one of the clicks will really pay out! Once you reach $100.00, you get paid, either by check, or by direct deposit into your checking account.

Google Adsense has some rules, these are meant to protect the advertisers, these are the people who are paying you…

Ant troubles, fortunately they aren’t fire ants or those crazy raspberry ants, these don’t seem to bite, or at least they don’t go out of their way to bite. These are smallish black ants, we leave them alone for the most part, but occasionally they wander into the house. They seem to like the dead moths that populate the house, the reason there are dead moths is because we keep the house open all the time, and at night the lights attract lots of moths. By the morning, the moths seem to be mostly dead. The ants then come in and remove the dead moths. Sounds like a good thing, except I know the ants will start looking for other goodies to eat, food crumbs, and such.

I have been dusting the doorway with cinnamon, and spraying Ivory soap water where ever the ants are coming in. The cinnamon works for about a day, then it loses it’s effectiveness, the soap works until it dries, which happens fast out here. I did a search for ant repellent, I found lots of home remedies, I found one that I had everything needed, yeast, molasses, and water. I made up a batch, put it in some jar lids and placed it in the ant’s path. So far, they seem to not like it, maybe I should paint it on the posts outside that are just under the door. I wonder if that would work? I guess we are just going to have to bite the bullet and get something from the store next time we are in town. I hate using poisons, I’ll see what the stores have…

7 Comments

the texan said…

sprinkle some borax around where they are coming in.

May 25, 2008 12:03 PM

the texan said…

sprinkle some borax around where they are coming in.

May 25, 2008 12:03 PM

Wretha said…

That is one idea, I’ll have to see if the store in town has any, it’s hit or miss with these stores. :) For what it’s worth, the spot where I placed the molasses and yeast mixture, the ants don’t seem to like it, and for now, have vacated that particular area. I’m going to move it around and see if it works elsewhere.

May 25, 2008 12:21 PM

lornkanaga said…

I’ve never heard of using Borax, but that stuff does so many things, who knows (g).

What I use on the tiny ants are Orange Clean/Glow–I used Orange Glow on wood, and Orange Clean on everything else. Amazingly enough, it’s been two years since the last “invasion,” and I’m keeping my fingers crossed. For some reason, the tiny ants don’t like it, and when I spray the stuff directly on them they practically fizzle and melt. Unfortunately, that stuff doesn’t work on the regular-size ants and even when I spray it right on them it

Wow, it’s been a few days since I’ve written anything here, let’s see if I can catch everyone up on what’s been going on… Bob has been working on the bedroom addition to the cabin, I suppose it’s beginning to be more of a house and less of a cabin, Bob doesn’t like me referring to it as a cabin, so I will try to stop referring to our house as a cabin. :)

The bedroom has a roof and walls now, we had lots of windows (thanks to everyone who donated windows to us!), so many of the walls are mostly windows, that’s a good thing! We have great views, and it makes it a breeze to ventilate (pun intended). Most of the windows have screens too, for the ones that don’t have them, we will make them. Bob also built a deck outside the bedroom, it’s nice to go outside and sit on the deck, especially at night when it’s cool and the stars are out.

It’s been getting hot during the day, as long as the wind is blowing, it’s pretty comfortable, but on the days the wind is calm, it can get pretty warm in the house. We have found that during the hottest part of the day, the best place to be is under the house, it can be in the upper 90s in the house, but in the upper 70s to 80s under the house, the concrete walls tend to be cool, they register 75 degrees F. Our house sits some 7-8 feet above ground, so it’s pretty easy to walk under the house, still Bob has worked on digging out the dirt to increase the head room, we will eventually close up the bottom floor with concrete, and pour a concrete floor. It should be very comfortable down there, might even sleep down there, though it does get cool at night (typical desert, hot during the day, cool to cold at night). Last night I went to sleep with one light blanket, I had all of the windows open, I woke up early with a chill, I had to grab a second blanket. Trying to sleep during the day though it difficult, the bed traps your body heat, and it gets too warm, if we had a bed under the house, it would be easy to take a nap during the hottest part of the day.

Bob’s brother is supposed to come down for a visit soon, maybe in a week or so, I can’t wait, he will be a big help to Bob, I can do just so much for Bob, I am a big help, but I don’t have the strength of a man, so having another male here for a while will be a big help. Bob’s brother has lots of good ideas like Bob does, so the two of …

Added 5-20-08

I Googled caffeine for skin and coffee scrub, I read that it might help prevent skin cancers, that sounds good! I don’t know if doing a scrub with coffee grounds gives my skin enough caffeine, I’ll keep researching, maybe a mask made with coffee grounds would allow my skin to soak up more caffeine (?).

This is mainly for the ladies out there, though you guys can do this too… Since I’ve been living out here, my beauty regiment has gotten pretty lax, it’s hard to remember to do the necessary daily things to make sure my skin stays at it’s best. This from a former hairdresser and former Mary Kay and Avon rep, I know better, but it’s too easy to let other things take priority and not do what is needed. So my face has suffered from the lack of care, I’m 42 almost 43 and I still get zits, I have slightly oily skin, but I’m also getting some wrinkles and lines, I notice the thinning skin and it doesn’t spring back from trauma like it used to.

I seriously needed to do a scrub on my face, I was looking around for something to use, I read about caffeine being used in skin care, so what did I have that contains caffeine? Coffee! I grabbed a can of coffee, the kind you brew, not instant, I put about a half teaspoon of coffee grounds in my hand, then I took some face moisturizer and mixed enough with the coffee grounds to make a paste. I used this as a scrub on my face and neck, then wiped it off with a wet wash cloth. My skin felt clean, invigorated and smooth. The next day, my skin still felt great, sometimes my skin reacts negatively to some beauty products, but this didn’t cause any distress at all, my skin felt great. I plan on doing this once a week to help keep my skin smooth. I am thinking about doing this in the shower on my whole body…

If anyone who reads this, tries this, let me know how it worked out for you. :)

I had a major sweet tooth attack tonight, didn’t have much laying around, here’s what I made, it turned out pretty good!

1 10″ flour tortilla
butter
1 banana
cinnamon
2 fat tablespoons of coconut frosting (from a jar)

I heated some butter in a frying pan, I put in the tortilla, I cooked it on each side in the butter until it was warm and pliable. I removed it to a plate, next I cut up a banana, the banana was ripe, but not overly ripe, it was just a day or so past the green state. I put in more butter in the pan, I put in the cut up bananas, I cooked them for about 5 minutes until they softened slightly, I put a couple of fat spoons full of coconut frosting in the tortilla, I spread it around, I poured the bananas onto the tortilla, I put a dash of cinnamon on top of the bananas. I wrapped the tortilla up like a burrito. It was sooooo good! And it satisfied my sweet tooth.

I ran across this article today, I found it very interesting and informative, I hope you can get something out of it too.The article is about keeping your food cold when you don’t have much power.

https://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/hackleman56.html

We might be getting a propane refrigerator, I have been learning more about them, they sound like a really perfect way (for us) to keep our food cold, we have been using a small, cube fridge, it’s pretty small, and doesn’t use THAT much power, but it is our biggest power drain, if we can get a propane powered fridge, it would help us conserve the power we generate each day for use on other things, like surfing the internet! :) Ever since we got internet access, we use the laptop much more often, surfing the internet for hours each day, more at night, so we pretty much use up our batteries, the inverter starts complaining each time the fridge powers up, if we don’t shut down the computer, the inverter will eventually continually beep and shut down. When that happens, nothing works until the next day when the sun comes up.

Our Newest Test Project

Bob has been experimenting with a smaller windmill style generator. We found out that you can use a cordless drill motor, it contains a permanent magnet motor, combine that with a fan and a tail, set up in a windy spot, and you get electricity.

Yes, that is a Ryobi drill mounted there, this is the test model, the wire isn’t really hooked up to anything, though Bob just walked through with a 12 volt (?) led light, we are going to test it. We had had it hooked up to a volt meter, with a fairly light wind, the highest we have seen is 6 volts so far.

Bob got this put up yesterday, it’s been windy for the last few days to a week, once he got this up, the wind just died… typical huh… anyhoo, there is light and variable wind today, so we will be putting our test model through it’s paces.

Update, the led lights do light up, woo hoo!