Category Archives: housekeeping tips

family, food, housekeeping tips

When cocoa powder opens new doors of world discovery…

Yesterday, Bill got a very interesting video from his younger daughter, and it led to a discussion that I think will open new doors of discovery. Younger daughter, who is currently expecting her latest baby, said that she had a craving for hot cocoa the other day. She said she doesn’t often eat chocolate or drink hot cocoa because chocolate seems to upset her stomach and give her a headache. Her husband has the same complaint. However, because she’s pregnant right now, and has some intense cravings for certain foods, she decided to risk the discomfort.

The only problem was, she didn’t have enough cocoa powder. Like a lot of Americans, she’d had good old fashioned American cocoa powder in her cupboard. She doesn’t use it very often, though, because chocolate stuff seems to make her feel ill. So she only uses cocoa every once in a great while, and she’d forgotten to buy more the last time she’d used it for something.

Last year, when Bill and I went to Antwerp, Belgium, for my birthday, we stopped by a Belgian chocolatier and bought some stuff for younger daughter and her family. One of the things we bought for her was some real Belgian Dutch processed cocoa powder. It came in a fancy blue canister. Younger daughter opened it for the first time a couple of days ago and was immediately shocked by how different it looked, compared to her American cocoa powder.

Then she made the hot cocoa and was blown away by how much better it tasted, compared to the American stuff. Not only that, but she didn’t suffer a headache or stomach issues due to the cocoa, as she normally would have. After she excitedly told us about how excellent the Belgian Dutch processed cocoa was, she added that her husband also thought it was much better and didn’t suffer the usual ill effects. He said, “We can’t ever go back (to American cocoa powder, that is)!”

Bill explained to his daughter that the Dutch processed cocoa is treated with an alkalizing agent that reduces the acidity of the cocoa and takes away some of the bitterness. It’s also much lower in caffeine than non Dutch processed cocoa is. Since younger daughter and her husband are devout Mormons, it’s likely they are sensitive to caffeine. They don’t drink coffee or black tea, and probably don’t drink a lot of cola. While caffeine can help get rid of headaches to those who are addicted to it, it can also cause adverse side effects in those who aren’t used to it.

There’s also the fact that Belgian chocolate is among the very best in the world, and is made to very different standards than US made chocolate is. If you’ve ever eaten a Hershey bar, you might notice that they tend to have a distinctive smell kind of reminiscent of vomit. But other chocolate doesn’t necessarily have that pukey aroma. I’ve never encountered it in Belgian or Swiss chocolates. The weird smell is there because of the presence of butyric acid, which is also present in rancid butter, Parmesan cheese, and vomit. Hershey’s claims that they do not put the acid in the chocolate; and yet, somehow it still seems to make its way into their products. If you click the link in this paragraph, you can read more about how and why the acid is in Hershey’s chocolate, when the company swears they aren’t the ones putting it there.

After Bill told his daughter about Dutch processed cocoa and the high quality of Belgian and other European chocolates, I quipped “Now you’ve bonded over cocoa powder. She’s learned about European chocolate because of you.” Her mother never exposed her to many things from Europe. Indeed, she seems to embrace knock offs rather than genuine articles. Almost everything in her life– from her handbags to her children’s father figures– is fake.

I’m glad younger daughter is getting to talk to Bill about these things now… but I wish she’d been able to do that when she was still growing up. I wish Bill could have taught her things when she was a child and a teenager. And I wonder what could happen when she has a quiet moment or two, sometime in the future, and realizes what was stolen from her when she was coming of age. Her father could have died on 9/11, or when he went to Iraq to fight in a war, or even on his many commutes to and from work. Fortunately, he’s still here, and technology allows him and his daughter to finally get to know each other, in spite of her mother’s efforts to destroy their bond.

Well, at least they can talk about these things now. At least now Bill can help her broaden her horizons, even if it’s just through talking about cocoa powder from Belgium. This story could have turned out a lot worse. Anyway, I’m glad younger daughter is enjoying the Dutch processed cocoa powder. Bill used some the other day when he made us brownies. I was craving them, even though I’m definitely not pregnant.

I’m not sure if we sent her the Van Houten Dutch processed cocoa powder, which is from Belgium. However, I have a feeling that now that she’s tried it, she won’t want to go back to Hershey’s. I hope someday that she and her husband, at the very least, can visit Europe and experience it for themselves. I think if they had a chance to travel outside of the United States, they would be shocked and awed by what’s out there.

As it is now, younger daughter has some favorite German candy. She’s partial to gummi bears, of course, but she also loves Milka chocolate bars. She hasn’t even tried Ritter Sports yet. Bill was going to send some to her in our latest care package, but the store had run out of them. Next time we send her some goodies, we’ll have to throw in Ritter Sports, which are made very close to where we used to live. Something tells me once they try them, she and her husband won’t be able to go back… or unring the bell, as it were. This could turn out to be a metaphor of their lives as a whole.

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housekeeping tips, money, technology, work, YouTube

It’s new appliance week for us… that means a slightly cleaner house!

The featured photo is a screenshot of what I think is the TV we bought. It’s a LG 43 inch “thin” TV… kinda no frills. Cost about $300. What a bargain.

As most of the United States swelters in a heat wave, I’m sitting here in Germany with the air conditioning turned off and the windows closed. Why? Because at the moment, the temperature is hovering at around 53 degrees. That’s very unusual, even for Germany. In about a month, it will probably get chilly for good until the spring.

We had a lot of rain over the weekend, and on Saturday, our washing machine went out of commission. I was also not feeling very well, thanks to too much vino on Friday night. So Bill stayed in and used a grinder to pulverize some barley for his latest beer brewing effort. I watched videos on YouTube, fuming that the TV was acting up.

As I mentioned yesterday, I ordered us a new washer and dryer, and they should be arriving at some point tomorrow. I suspect they’ll be a nice upgrade for us, as they aren’t super cheap, and they’re a little bit bigger than what we’ve been using. Granted, we’re just two people in our household, but having a small washer is not so great when you have to wash the linens or dog bedding.

We also bought a new TV yesterday. This isn’t super exciting, really… We ended up going to AAFES to see what they had, hoping to find something that would fit in the relatively small area where we’d put the last TV. I was shocked to find that aside from one 24 inch computer monitor sized TV by Westinghouse, AAFES had nothing smaller than 43 inches. And they only had one model, an LG… the very same company that made our soon to be departing washer. Actually, we did get nine years of service from the washer. And although it’s a pain to buy new large appliances, buying them usually does result in a lifestyle upgrade. Still, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t wishing I could get one of the 50 inch TV models they had, with the really good, crisp, clear picture. It seems if you want that level of quality, you have to buy a TV that covers your whole wall!

Seriously, though… I grew up with big, boxy, cumbersome TVs. The one we had at our house for decades was a floor model. It was a piece of furniture, in and of itself. It had no remote control, and to get it to work, all you had to do was plug it into the wall and adjust the antenna. Later, we got a cable box for it, so we could watch HBO and such. But to change the channel, you had to haul your ass over to the TV and change it manually… at least until my parents finally bought a VCR, in 1987, and that could also double for remote control purposes.

My parents had a spare TV in the bedroom, but it, too, was one with dials on it that had to be turned manually. It wasn’t until the late 80s that my dad bought my mom a TV with remote capabilities. And none of our TVs were huge, like they are today. I remember, my first week of college, in 1990, the awful roommate I had for just one week had brought a 25 inch TV that I thought was HUGE. That would be considered positively puny by today’s standards.

The TV we brought home yesterday gets pretty bad reviews. It’s still an upgrade over the Philips model TV we’ve had since 2013, if only because it has a better picture and you can connect it to an app. The app, of course, sucks balls. I knew it was going to be a problem when I tried to input my information into the TV itself and it wouldn’t let me set my home country to Germany. But when I downloaded the app, it knew I was in Germany and addressed me in German… and when I made my account, it gave me a button that said, “return to home”. But when I tried to do that, nothing happened.

The remote that comes with the TV also sucks. I think it’s because they have a different remote that you can buy separately– the “magic remote”, which gets mediocre reviews. I don’t really use the TV remote much, anyway, since I have Apple TV. Still, it’s a pain when I need to use the TV remote to upgrade software, or whatever. With Apple TV, the new television works well enough for my purposes, which is mostly watching downloaded movies, YouTube, and Netflix.

We bought a separate stand for the new TV, because it’s on top of my dresser and it came with two “feet”, rather than one large footprint. The single stand works better, because the TV is at an angle, and my dresser is kind of narrow. We have to angle the TV, because we live in a German house with sloping walls/ceilings… which is also why we had to settle for a 43 inch model. A bigger TV wouldn’t have fit in the space, unless we managed to mount it on the wall. Neither Bill nor I have the tools or the handiness quotient to mount the TV on the wall.

I realize I’m doing a fair bit of whining, here. I should be grateful we could afford to buy the TV and were able to find one in a suitable size, on a Sunday, no less. We have a car that was big enough to accommodate the TV and we were strong enough to carry it into the house and up the stairs to the bedroom. And we did use it to watch Airplane! last night, which was fun to see before bedtime. I never get tired of that movie… and thanks to the new screen, I noticed a couple of things I’d never noticed before in the countless times I’ve see Airplane! since 1980, the year it was made. I used to watch it repeatedly on HBO, back in the early 80s.

I did consider ordering a TV on the economy, or just going to Media Markt to buy one. But at some point, we’ll probably move back to the USA, and the TV we got yesterday is a US model. Plus, I was just in a shopping mode yesterday, and I didn’t want to wait until next weekend. Buying a new washer and dryer put me in the mood for a new TV. Somehow, I suspect the new TV won’t last us ten years… but the one we bought wasn’t all that expensive. It was the very last one AAFES had in stock– the only one that wasn’t huge. And the guy had to go in the back and ask the manager if he could sell it, because it didn’t have any price tags on it, or anything. A 50 inch TV might have worked… but it would have been a tight squeeze.

One good thing that came out of yesterday’s adventures was that I finally had a reason to dust. We cleaned up the furniture in the bedroom and even vacuumed behind my dresser, which really needed an evacuation of the many dust bunnies hiding behind it. I also threw away some trash that had been taking up space.

I may call myself the “Overeducated Housewife”, but I’m not really very good at keeping house. I’m a bit of a slob. I’m not a filthy slob, mind you… I clean the toilets, take out the trash, do the dishes, cut the grass, and do laundry, among other things. But I’m not one for dusting every day, washing windows, or vacuuming more than once a week or so, except for special situations, like yesterday. And I don’t spend more than a day a year doing things like cleaning baseboards, scrubbing drawers, or using a toothbrush to clean the grout.

I’m sure our ex landlady really hated that about me. I think she assumed that since I didn’t have a paid job outside of the home, or children to raise, I should have been spending all day keeping her rental house absolutely spotless. My mom kept our house spotless. You’d think I would have inherited that trait from her. Unfortunately, all I got from my mom besides my looks, dry wit, and practicality, is a flair for making music.

I never went to the ex landlady’s house, but Bill told me it was immaculate. Sorry… I just don’t have that level of obsessive compulsiveness, nor do I think for over 1600 euros a month in rent, that should be expected of me. I do like it when things are neat, but unless I stay very vigilant, at my house, they inevitably end up cluttered again. I just don’t care enough about not living in dust, dog hair, and clutter to spend all day preventing it from accumulating. When you live with dogs, constantly trying to keep things super clean is pretty much a pointless exercise, anyway.

I actually think our ex landlady hated a lot of things about me. It showed in the consistently and blatantly disrespectful way she treated me. I’m sure she saw me as fat, stupid, lazy, and slovenly, while the tenant before me was her ideal… and someone, I think, she once thought of as a surrogate daughter. Interestingly enough, I’m still here among the living, and former tenant isn’t. It wouldn’t surprise me if ex landlady resents that situation, too. She probably feels abandoned and betrayed, because her “ideal” American tenant offed herself, while the ones she liked a whole lot less are still here, in her country, and doing well enough to buy new appliances.

I try not to think too long and hard about that situation, because I find it nerve wracking and upsetting. I mean, it’s the stuff of novels, what we went through… and maybe someday, I’ll write about it. Especially now that former tenant is no longer monitoring my online activities and trying to tell me what I can and can’t write about on my own space. I did enjoy living in our last town. Sometimes, I even really miss it. But I sure don’t miss the constant fuckery, frequent reprimands and lectures, and regular interruptions of my daily routines… or the fact that in exchange for comparatively low rent (for Germany, anyway– not for the US), we also got a few people who would not, and could not, respect our privacy, even though we were very good about paying ex landlady early and not bothering her unless it was absolutely necessary.

Ah well… that’s what I get for writing a blog that isn’t 100 percent as dull as dishwater. If I just wrote about the lint in my navel, no one would care, except the fetishists. And lots of people don’t like me, for a multitude of reasons. Maybe they wish I’d trade places with former tenant, who was very pretty, athletic, accomplished, and well liked, but apparently was also very troubled and, I fear, quite fake. With me, what you get is what you see, right?

Anyway… tomorrow, I hope Bill will be able to stay home until the delivery guys get here with our new washer and dryer, just to make sure everything gets set up properly. I don’t know if we’ll get nine or more years out of these new appliances. It depends a lot on what happens in the next Presidential election, I guess.

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complaints, home, housekeeping tips, movies

Like Zack Mayo, “I got nowhere else to go!”

Yesterday, I wrote a post that was a bit peevish, as two guys have descended upon my house, installing new windows. Yeah, yeah, yeah… it’s a first world problem. Nevertheless, it still sucks for me, because I’m used to being by myself most of the time. I like peace and quiet, and being able to hang out at home, braless. I like reading and napping when I want to, and being able to write in peace, without a bunch of power tools and crappy pop music blaring.

I feel displaced in my own home, and it’s got me a bit irritable, even though ultimately, the new windows will make the house a better place to live. I don’t enjoy being bitchy to people, but these guys are kind of pissing me off. I want them to do their work and get out of my life. 😉 I want them to stop acting like my space is their space. I feel like I used to feel when I was watching a movie and my dad would come in and, without a word, change the station to sports or something. Granted, it was his house, and his TV, but he had no regard for me. It was like I was a nuisance to him. This time, I’m actually in my own home, and these guys have just swooped in like a bunch of seagulls and crapped all over my peace.

Yesterday, they spent most of their time upstairs, which is where I usually spend my days. They took over my office, the bathroom, and Noyzi’s room (which is really the “entertainment room” that we never use). Now, the bathroom and the office are done. I’m not sure about my bedroom and Noyzi’s room. I’ve parked myself downstairs with my laptop and AirPods, which at least helps me block out their annoying dance music with the mindless thumping rhythms and moronic melodies. It doesn’t block out the sound of their equipment, but I mind that less, as they need that to do their jobs effectively.

Well… now they’re moving downstairs, so I can’t avoid the noise as easily. I’m not sure if it would be better to go upstairs, or if they’ve still got their shit spread out all over the place. I just checked, and one of the guys is sitting on the stairs, basically blocking the way. I just pointedly closed the door again. I thought I had them trained. SIGH. See… I don’t like having to do that. I’d just as soon stay out of their way completely. But, just like Zack Mayo in An Officer and a Gentleman, “I got nowhere else to go!” So, I have to sit here and endure, just like always. It’s my lot in this military life. 😉

No, I don’t have a drill sergeant screaming at me while I do sit ups, but like Zack, I feel like “I got nowhere else to go…”

Before anyone tries to offer me solutions– and PLEASE don’t do that, by the way, cuz I didn’t ask for advice– I can’t leave the house. My car is dead, and I can’t get my dog in it, because he’s a big monster and I drive a Mini. The only way he’s getting in the car is if I drop the top and somehow manage to lift him into the backseat. I don’t think I’m physically capable of doing that by myself. But, like I said, the Mini needs a new battery. It won’t start, anyway. That’s the next problem we’re fixing to address.

So this is me, complaining again… and trying to focus on how I’ll feel when these guys are done installing our new windows. Maybe it’ll be kind of like this.

Maybe it’s time I invested in a motorcycle…

Looks like they might have taken a set of doors to one of the rooms upstairs. In a few hours, they’ll finish for the day. I might start drinking before then, though.

“Give me the bottle!”

On a more serious note… yesterday, I found myself getting upset. I actually felt, at one point, like I might burst into tears. Why? Because this experience gave me a flashback to July 2013, when Bill and I were moving from North Carolina to Texas, and we had the most godawful movers, ever. They descended on my house like a bunch of hungry nematodes and did an absolutely TERRIBLE job of packing us.

It was very stressful to watch, especially when one of the teenaged boys came into the house like a fucking elephant and busted a hole in the floor. We almost lost our security deposit over that, even though the floor wasn’t correctly installed in the first place and was buckling because of moisture. The moving company, of course, denied responsibility. We complained, and their insurance company paid our former landlord.

The following year, we had to move from Texas to Germany, and we had split movers. One set was fantastic– they packed our stuff for Germany. Bill even did a shot of tequila with the guy– a Mexican and his son. The other set of movers– the ones who packed our stuff for storage– was shitty. One guy was on his phone the whole time, and the other got food poisoning from eating gas station sushi and had to go home early. I’d say the North Carolina movers and the storage portion of the Texas movers were equally terrible.

In both of those situations, I had a crying jag/meltdown/fit. I was about on the verge of another one yesterday. I was that triggered, plus I was hot and miserable. But I managed to survive, just like Zack Mayo did. I have every hope and faith that the same thing will happen today.

An Officer and a Gentleman is one of my favorite movies of all time, by the way. Maybe it’s time I watched it again. Also… when we went through the window exchange in 2014, I was somewhat less bitter.

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complaints, dogs, home, housekeeping tips

I never said it would be easy, only that it would be “worth it”…

Good afternoon, y’all. I’m getting a late start today. My house has been overtaken by alien forces.

The guys in my house right now should add this song to their playlist…

Actually, what’s happening is that this week, our landlord is having new windows put in. We’ve been through this before. When we lived in our former German house, it was half furnished with new windows. The remainder were put in within weeks of our tenancy. I remember the process to be quite a pain in the ass, especially since the people who made the windows got the wrong measurements. We had wood over our windows for about a week or so, until new ones could be made.

This time, it looks like they got the right measurements, but the whole house is being done all this week. The same guys did our landlord’s house last week. Now, it’s our turn to deal with the noise and the dust. I’m at a disadvantage, though, because I’m not the one paying the window guys. I’m just the tenant’s wife, who doesn’t really speak German and is kind of in their way.

I’d take off if I could, but that would mean leaving Noyzi home alone. He doesn’t fit in my car, and it’s not running right now, anyway. It needs a new battery, and probably new tires. And these guys have already shown me that they were born in a barn. They came into the house this morning– promptly at 8 AM– and immediately started moving stuff in my office, Noyzi’s room, and the bathroom. I had just finished writing a blog post, but hadn’t yet published it. I had to rush through that, then move to my bedroom, where I quickly practiced and restrung my guitar.

When I took Noyzi for a walk, I realized that sitting upstairs would probably be a bad idea. The workers’ crap is all over the place. I’m all hot and sweaty and I’d really like to take a shower, but the upstairs bathroom is a mess.

I asked the guys in English to keep the front door closed, because I don’t want Noyzi getting out. I don’t think he’d actually go out by himself, but I don’t want to take the risk. He spooks easily, and we live near the Autobahn. We already lost one dog that freaked out and got killed there. I don’t want that to happen to Noyzi, too. I don’t actually think Noyzi would get hit on the Autobahn. He’s very street smart, and avoids danger quite adeptly. But he’s still a dog, and he gets scared. Not only would I be heartbroken to lose him; it would also cost us a lot of money if he got hit by a car, even though we’re insured.

Far be it for me to criticize anyone for not being fluent in English when we’re in Germany. BUT… most younger people, which these guys are, know a little bit of English. I would expect them to at least know “close the door.” I mean, I could probably say that in German, if I had to, and I might have even tried, if the guy hadn’t immediately cut me off and said he doesn’t speak English without even trying to listen to my request. It’s one thing when I open the door and someone starts going off in rapid fire German at me. I never invited them to a conversation. I’m just minding my own business, in my own space.

This guy is in my home, which we’re paying a lot of money to live in, and I have the right to make a simple request that he and his colleague not leave the door open so my dog doesn’t escape. I was NOT impressed by his basic lack of respect toward me. Moreover, if Noyzi got out because those guys left the door open, I would be raising major Hell.

I’m pretty sure I rolled my eyes and gave the guy a major bitch glare when I said, “Keep the door closed. Because of the dog.”

The guy seemed to understand my request. I did also ask the landlord to tell them to close the door. Nevertheless, even though they seemed to understand that I wanted them to close the door, they continued to leave it open a few times. So I moved downstairs and, much to my shame, took a passive aggressive approach to teaching them. Every time they left the door open, I closed it HARD. There were also a couple of glares, too. I know you get more bees with flies than honey, but to me this is a pretty simple thing.

Another thing that is annoying me is that these two have a love for German pop dance music. It has a very hard, driving beat that pulsates through the floor. It’s giving me a headache. So, I decided to turn on my music downstairs. It’s an eclectic mix of everything from bluegrass to disco. That should entertain them as much as it does me. And, although it’s only 2:45 PM, I’m strongly considering doing some day drinking… because fuck them. 😉

Normally, I wouldn’t take this attitude. I have a lot of respect for tradesmen and service providers. But yes, it does annoy me when someone invades my home, immediately spreads their shit all over most of the upstairs, where I do my work, and without even asking me if it’s okay to start there, and playing their crappy music, while acting like they were raised in a barn and not closing the fucking front door behind them. I don’t even care if they think I’m a raving bitch, either. They wouldn’t be the first. 😉 Besides, I’ve got underwear older than they are.

With any luck, this won’t go on for the whole week…

On the plus side, as today’s post title indicates, the end result will be worth it. I know from our last house that new windows will make our house more comfortable on many levels. The house does need them. And next year, we’ll probably get a heat pump… if we don’t move. That will mean no more buying tanks of oil every year and, maybe, better heating and cooling. Maybe… we’ll see.

I do appreciate our landlord. He’s a good guy who treats us with respect and never harasses us. I doubt we’ll have to sue him when we eventually move out. I am grateful for the upgrade in the house. I just wish these guys were more considerate and didn’t treat me like I don’t have the right to be in my own home.

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animals, housekeeping tips, pests

All of the creepy crawlies in our midst today…

A little mood music…

Today is Bill’s birthday. I woke up at 5:30 AM, having had a very vivid dream involving Bill, an 80s era luxury hotel in Switzerland, and fighting with weird people. The one thing I remember about the hotel in my dream is that it was very pleasing to us and dog friendly, and it had cool features like tunnels you could slide through to get to the next room. Maybe I’ve been reading too much about mass market cruise lines.

Anyway, that’s not really the focus of today’s post. Today, I want to focus on something I learned yesterday. It involves learning how to kill the creepy crawlies that have taken up residence in our wine/rain barrel in the backyard.

You may be wondering how I got into this disgusting mess. Here’s the story of how we came to acquire the wine barrel.

When we first moved into this house, back in late 2018, there was an old barrel in the backyard that was being used for rain collection. Previous tenants had built sort of a makeshift/IKEA’esque shelter on the patio. I could tell they made it, because no German would have put up something with such half-assed, shoddy workmanship. It’s still standing today, but you can tell it’s sort of “jerry-rigged”. Anyway, the previous tenants went as far as to design a sort of drainage system on the shelter, which connected to a pipe that ran into the old barrel.

Well, over the past few years, the old barrel basically disintegrated. It got so that it wouldn’t hold any water, but then it just fell apart. I was sad about the eyesore, which is still in the backyard, but I also liked having a rain barrel, because it made watering my plants easier. We don’t have a spigot in the backyard; one exists in the garage, but we also don’t have a hose. And I just liked the idea and look of the old barrel, when it was still functioning.

Still, I resisted replacing the barrel for a couple of years. I was afraid of the logistics of getting it into the backyard, and everything else that goes with having rain barrels. Then, during the spring of ’23, I got the urge to spruce up the backyard a bit. We spend a lot of time out there during the warmer months. I bought a barrel and we put it where the old one had been rotting. Click here to get to a post about the barrel when it was new. There, you can see a picture of the two barrels side by side. The new one is a vast improvement.

Slowly, I filled up the new barrel, either with rain water, or water from our kitchen tap. It smelled of wine, but I didn’t mind. I like the smell of wine. Then, as the weather got warmer, I started noticing certain critters taking up residence in the water. I expected there would be mosquitoes, but I hadn’t considered there would be worms with long, stringy tails. I watched them grow, trying to oust the ones I could see. Then we went on vacation for over two weeks.

When we got home the other day, I was horrified to see that the rain barrel had come alive with disgusting pests! So, I immediately went off to Google to see what I could do about the problem. I then found out that the worms were actually red tailed maggots– larvae of the drone fly! Eeeew! But according to Wikipedia, they do have a practical purpose. They can be used as fish bait.

In any case, I determined that useful or not, I didn’t want these pests living in my rain barrel. So I purchased some pills that were designed to target and kill mosquitoes. The product is a type of bacillus that makes the water uninhabitable for mosquitoes. When we used it the other day, it did have a noticeable effect on the mosquitoes. Most of the mature ones disappeared. I also noticed that a big spider had helpfully set up a web in the shelter put up by the last tenants.

Good , environmentally friendly method for getting rid of mosquitoes and such…

But… even though we were seeing significant progress, it wasn’t working fast enough to get rid of the pests. It also didn’t seem to be killing off the disgusting maggots in the wine barrel–which, by the way, we also often see in our trash cans during the summer. So last night, I took action again. Enter Dawn dishwashing liquid!

I swear, that stuff is a wonder drug. It’s great for cleaning dishes, but it also does a great job of cleaning everything else, especially when it’s paired with hydrogen-peroxide or baking soda. And, if you have maggots in your wine/rain barrel, it’ll very quickly and effectively take care of those little fuckers, too. Another solution is vegetable oil, which, like Dawn, ruins the surface tension on the water and makes it inhospitable to waterborne pests. I don’t like the idea of using oil, though.

I squeezed about a tablespoon of straight blue Dawn into the water. Not only did it help make the water smell less rancid, but last night, it also put an end to quite a few maggot lives. This morning, I found a whole bunch of them floating on top of the water. I spent several minutes fishing them out. I do have a cover for the barrel and will start covering it up, and/or invest in a fly screen, to prevent this infestation from happening again. Or, at least prevent such a severe infestation. Sheesh!

I’ve also finally started to drain the water for use in the garden, as it was originally intended. This article informs me that I can also get some fragrant plants that mosquitoes find unbearable. We already have a basil plant, but we can easily get other varieties that will also serve a purpose of proving herbs for foods and drinks.

I know many people would find having to cope with these pests pretty unbearable. I grew up around horses, so I’m pretty used to dealing with pesky insects, rodents, snakes, and arachnids. And while I don’t generally enjoy killing things, I do get some joy out of killing mosquitoes and flies, since they spread disease and filth. Mosquitoes are pretty much the most dangerous creature known to man.

I just went downstairs to turn on the dishwasher and noticed a big black bird in the backyard. I’m sure it found a ready feast of the maggots back there.

Since I’ve been living in Germany, I’ve learned all kinds of practical, environmentally friendly solutions to pest control problems. We also have ants in our house, because there are parts of the kitchen that need to be regrouted. I learned that a good way to repel them safely is to sprinkle cinnamon near where they live. It isn’t a perfect solution, but it does cut down on the number of them invading the house, and I don’t have to worry about Noyzi coming into contact with poison. Pretty soon, they’ll disappear again, as the weather gets colder.

I’ve also learned a good way of getting rid of slugs. Put out a bowl of beer, and they’ll crawl in, get drunk, and drown. But I hate to waste good beer on slugs, even though there’s a whole lot of it in Germany.

This is just another life form we’ve found in the yard… to include mice, marders, hedgehogs, bumblebees, and a large variety of insects and arachnids. My biology teachers would be so proud. 😉

I just threw some more detergent into the barrel. I’m fixing to order a fish net for aquariums. That will make it easier to scoop up the dead maggots as they inevitably meet doom. Mwhahaahahahaaha…

Well, on that note, I’m going to write another post and get to work on making that birthday cake for Bill… after I’ve washed up, of course!

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