Wednesday, August 8

[Othersharon]

Good morning all! Looks like after a couple of really hot, humid days we’ll be getting more rain today. Seems like the pattern we’ve been in this summer. I’ve been running the air conditioning mostly to keep the humidity out of the house. I keep it on energy safe and set the temp up higher and it seems to help. I’m just grateful that we aren’t dealing with the stuff you all are out west! Although the flooding has been bad in some areas close to me. I even ran the ac in Lola for awhile to pull the humidity out. Need to remember to run it for awhile every few days, I guess. Talk about extremes.

Tin, glad you made it home and that you had a good time at the dog show. And BJ, Emma is beautiful. Not much happening here right now which is just fine with me. Trying to get my housework caught up since the fair starts next week and I’ll be gone mostly every day for that. I mentioned to my daughte in law the other day how early it is and she said it was because school starts a week earlier this year. Geez, with no kids in school anymore I don’t pay much attention to that! That combined with being retired it’s no wonder I lose track of what day it is! Okay, time to go get started on cleaning the upstairs and get some laundry done while I’m up there. (I’m so not a morning person!). Hope you all have a great day and be safe if you’re on the road.

[BirdbyBird]

Good Morning all. Stopped by the rig yesterday and removed all the food from the frig and turned it off. It was just about out of propane and not ready to come home yet. I propped the frig doors open so hopefully I won't get it back the mold of doom inside.

Josef is off to his vet appointment and I need to make an appointment for Audrey's spay. I don't like dealing with fuzzy "spay" coat but it is better than the other health issues that can plague her if she remains intact and not planning to use her lady parts!

Rainy here and sadly I haven't even got my kayak out once this summer.

[OregonLuvr]

Morning. Not much new to report here HOT and Smoky...no new news. Heat wave here this week. C'mon FALL.

My DirecTV "VIP installer" comes tomorrow to plug in the 3 cables...............sheesh

Picked quite a few tomatoes today so scalded them and pulled the skin off and sliced them up.....nothing like home grown tomatoes. One of my neighbors gave me some peaches they picked, OMG they are soooo sweet. Again scalded them and took the skin off then sliced and put in the fridge. Can you all tell I dont like skin on my tomatoes, peaches or apples LOL

The owners of my park had Taco Tuesday last night with ALL the fixin's. Was super good and had a good time.

Going to meet a friend for lunch this week so will be nice to get out even for just a bit. I feel kind of housebound.

[Acadianmom]

I'm not a morning person either but I could be if I would stay up when I first wake up. I usually wake up anywhere from 4 am on to go to the bathroom.

I have a meeting with the lawyer this afternoon. I'm anxious to see what he wants and if he's making any progress.

Karen got me interested in a steam mop so I looked them up on line. I have the big tile that is glued down so I'm afraid the steam might make them come unglued. The last time I ran the Roomba it seemed like it didn't run long before it wanted to be recharged. Hope it's not needing a new battery.

I need to find someone to look at the satellite dome on the new motorhome. The plate where it's turned on says it is set up for direct but a receiver cord for Dish was left in the tv compartment. I think it must have been reprogramed to dish. My receiver doesn't work in it. I have instructions for everything except the dome. All I know is it's a Winegard but don't know what model. The people I bought it from said they didn't use the satellite. They had some new antenna installed that they thought was wonderful. An over the air antenna is fine if you are close to tv stations but my group likes the state parks. I would also like to get one or two Maxx Air covers installed so the vents can be left open. It has the Fan-Tastic fans that are suppose to close when it rains but they don't. I probably don't know how to set them.

I have a meeting tonight with my club. Hope I don't forget when I come back from town. Probably need to put the notice on the dash of my car. I am getting so forgetful.

Martha

[BarbaraRose]

Another really hot day today. Was already 91* by 9:00 this morning. Ugh!

Just set up my little bistro set and it looks really good on my porch!

Went out to buy some flea foggers. They are back and biting me up again. I had a guy come out yesterday from a exterminator company and he gave me a quote for $85 every other month plus $200 up front with a year contract. Way too much money and I don't want to sign any contract. So I will do it myself. Need to find a day that I can take the kitties for a 3 hour drive while fogging the place.

Have a good day!

[Irmi]

Barbie, have you told your vet that the flea medication she/he prescribed isn't working? There is something very wrong. Maybe find another vet?

[Redetotry]

Sorry your fleas are back again Barbie. They are probably in your yard and on the critters that come to visit. Do your cats go out? The fogging won't kill them all I think the eggs will continue to hatch. Have you tried Diatomaceous Earth? You maybe could do one room at a time you shake it onto the floor leave overnight and vacuum next day. I'm sure there are directions online somewhere. Would need to do it a couple of times. I use Sentinel on the dogs, it doesn't kill the flea but makes them sterile and takes care of heartworms but not sure if they have it for cats. I remember fleas being a problem when I lived in CA.

Martha I've been looking at the floor scrubbers also. I have a steamer and the one I have doesn't seem to clean that well. I 'm thinking I might try one like this.
https://www.globalindustrial.com/p/jani ... gLYHPD_BwE

[Rufflesgurl]

Good afternoon all.

Karen why don't you like the skins of tomatoes and apples? I understand about peach fuzz. A neighbor brought me some of
her home grown tomatoes the other day and I noticed some of the skins were kind of tough??

Linda

[BarbaraRose]

I bought the Advantage from PetCo. The fogger I got kills the fleas and the eggs. It is a dry fogger so not supposed to leave any residue or odor. Has great reviews. May try to do it on Friday.

I set up my portable AC unit in the master today and it seems to work pretty good. I need to do some cleaning in there before we start painting. Very dusty! I started on that this morning but it was so hot I quit and decided to get the AC hooked up. I will be able to work on the cleaning some more tonight and tomorrow afternoon. Found more ants in there too so put out some more ant bait for them. Hope that takes care of them for awhile at least!

Gotta get ready for work now..

[OregonLuvr]

Linda, I find tomato skins tough, as do apples. I used to eat the whole apple but not any more LOL I have planted many different varieties of tomatoes and find all the skins tough. I went back to Kansas with my ex and his parents years ago. They served fresh homegrown tomatoes with lunch and supper (they were farmers so meals were big). That is how they did their tomatoes and I loved em so that is what I do now.

Martha I have tile too, it is glued and grouted. The steam mop has 3 settings on it depending on how heavy duty you need. I usually just use the middle setting.

[dpf]

Barbie....Try this for the fleas. https://www.ortho.com/en-us/products/in ... ick-killer I've used the Home Defense granules and spray for spiders, crickets etc and it really works well. I sprinkle the granules around the foundation and use the spray in the house. Because of the extremely wet summer we have had the earwigs were thick under my pots on the patio. I sprayed around them and have only seen an occasional live earwig. The spider webs in the garage aren't reappearing either. Certainly less expensive than an exterminator.

[Pooker]

Barbie - I have discovered that no matter what brand, no matter what the claim, the flea stuff doesn't kill the eggs! Only solution I found was to bomb the house every 3 days for 2 to 4 cycles. Yes, it's a pain in the neck taking the cats out. I had to do it, too. But that worked better than the professionals that I had to keep calling back and back. I read that cutting up flea collars and tossing them here and there in closets and under the house helps. I haven't tried that one yet because my fleas finally died off. But the dollar stores sell them and as long as the expiration date is current I'd pick up 4 or 5, cut them into 1 or 2 inch pieces and remove skirting or vents enough to walk around your house and toss them as far underneath as you can here and there. With our awful heat, the critters find any place they can to get away from it.

Now that my son and his girl are staying here, we have a total of 5 cats, and I live in fear of another infestation even though none of them venture outside. I just know there's a pregnant flea hunkering down just waiting for some opportunity to build a family inside!

Evie

[BarbaraRose]

Thanks Evie, for the flea collar idea! Hope you don't get them back!

[Cudedog]

I read that cutting up flea collars and tossing them here and there in closets and under the house helps. I haven't tried that one yet because my fleas finally died off. But the dollar stores sell them and as long as the expiration date is current I'd pick up 4 or 5, cut them into 1 or 2 inch pieces and remove skirting or vents enough to walk around your house and toss them as far underneath as you can here and there.
Evie

I had a terrible flea infestation a couple of years ago. They were in my garage, and when I went out there to get something, they would jump on me.

One day I went out there with white socks (so that I could see them if they jumped on me) and, sure enough, about twenty of them jumped on my ankles and clung to my socks. I got out of the garage right quick, pulled those socks off and put them in a ziplock bag. I had an unopened flea collar at the time, and although a vet I used to work for said all flea collars were useless, I had bought one anyway, because I was getting desperate.

I went and got this flea collar (it was a top name brand flea collar that I got at Petsmart, and cost a bundle), opened it up, and put it in the ziplock bag, along with the flea-covered socks. I kind of wanted to see how quickly the flea collar would do them in. Again, the flea collar was in the ziplock bag with the flea covered socks, and the bag was zipped closed. The bag was transparent, so it was easy to see the fleas jumping around in there, looking for lunch.

Well, after a week or so (!) the fleas were still alive, and still going strong - although I am guessing they were a bit hungry by then. Not a single one of them had died, and some were even sitting on the flea collar!!

Looks like my vet was right. I then tossed the ziplock bag with the socks and flea collar and the fleas into the trash.

As for tossing cut pieces of a flea collar in the closet or under the house or into the vents - should a dog or a cat ingest - or even lick - one of these pieces, it could very likely prove fatal. Flea collars are extremely toxic if ingested. Unfortunately, fleas don't eat flea collars - although dogs have been known to do so.

To each his own, but I would never try this.

PS. It is really informative to read that some of you are having, or have had, a bad flea problem. The first time I had one I was sure it was due to my generally lousy house cleaning habits, and was certain that I was probably the only one in the entire world that this had ever happened to.

A relief to know that I am not!!

Anne

[JudyJB]

I found this article that might help: https://www.doityourself.com/stry/fleacontrol3

It suggests vacuuming every two days for at least three weeks. And I would make sure you toss those vacuum cleaner bags.

What helped for me was fogging twice, 10 days apart, and treating the yard at the same time. In other words, not only does the inside have to be treated at least twice, so does the outside, and they have to be done at the same time.

Also, what about your neighbors' yards? The fleas may be hopping across the boundaries, so it would be nice for them to treat their yards at the same time.