Where’s Our Valley…Hiding In The Smoke

I went out three weeks ago and took some scenery pictures and posted them on my blog.  You would never know from the pictures taken today that they were taken from the same areas.  With all the smoke from surrounding fires here in Idaho, it has now socked into our little valley.  When I look out my front door, I can’t even see Mt. McCaleb, a huge mountain.

The picture below was taken in October of another year, but in the same direction as the picture above.  It gives you an idea of how big the mountains out our front door really are.

Everything around us has totally lost it’s beauty.  It doesn’t show in the photo, but you can actually see all the smoke filtering through and around all the trees.  And while driving down the highway, you can see it misting across the road.  It reminds me of the green haze they used in “The Ten Commandments”, movie.
Below are some before (July 28th) and some after (August 18th) photos.  Pretty dreary and smelly in our little valley right now.
 
 
 
 
We’ve even had reports of people noticing ash on their vehicles.  Wow, I can only imagine what it is like living directly where the fires are and my heart goes out to those people.

Homemade Sugar Ant Bait – It Works!

A few years back, I was plagued with little sugar ants crawling down the wall in my kitchen, running all over my counter tops and getting in my cupboards.  Once again, this year I noticed a few ants in the house.  I immediately got rid of them due to reports I had read previously that if you see an ant in your house, get rid of it……it is a scout ant, looking for food and upon finding something, it goes back to all the other ants to inform them of the find. 
Well, getting rid of the few ants I saw did not work.  The ants came marching, not one by one, but by oodles and oodles.  They were entering our home between the floor boards and linoleum by our front door.  In the past, I was able to get rid of them by using Hot Shot Liquid Ant Bait.

At the moment, I did not have any Hot Shot in the house so between the time of ordering some new Hot Shot, I resorted to looking on the internet for homemade, all natural ant bait remedies.  I found one that said to mix equal amounts of Borax and powdered sugar.  Didn’t work!  The ants were not even tempted by this and hardly even went by it to investigate.  So I thought I’d mix equal amounts of honey with the Borax to see what happened……BINGO.

They loved this mixture.  You can still see the Borax and powdered sugar on the floor and they weren’t even interested in it, but look how they are feasting on the Borax and honey mixture.

I carefully placed 8 little sticky note papers, drizzled with the Borax  and honey mixture all along their marching trail from my front door, along the hallway, through the kitchen and to an end cupboard where they had finally found their desired meal.
As you can see in the picture below, this mixture does dry out so you should replace it, at least every other day, or so.  It has actually been four days since I placed the first mixture down and you can see that I only have one ant on the mixture. 

For the past two days, I have occasionally seen an ant here and there but I want them ALL GONE…… so I am going to make one more fresh batch to give the few ants that are left, one last final feast.
As to whether this is a final fix, I’m not sure, only time will tell, but one thing I am sure of…..I have a whole lot less ants than I did before!

UPDATE:  I made another batch of ant bait and I guess it needed to be fresh because more ants (a whole lot less than in the beginning – maybe 20 or so) came to feast. 
The Hot Shot Ant Bait that I ordered came in the mail yesterday and I placed it on the floor close to the mixture I had made.

Between the two baits working, I have only seen three ants all morning.  I’m thinking the Hot Shot may work faster but the Borax and honey mixture sure dwindled them down……..WAY DOWN!

I also found this ant bait recipe on the internet……
Mix:
- 1/8 Cup Borax
- 1/2 Cup White Table Sugar
Combine the ingredients and spread carefully where you have seen the ants. The sugar will attract them and they will take the sugar and borax back to the nest. The borax breaks down the skeleton of the ant and they dehydrate. You should see results in one week or less.

And this one……I cut the recipe down quite a bit from the one posted on the internet.  I thought 1 1/2 cups of bait was way too much.



CAUTION……..Where these ant bait recipes contain Borax, I would not place them in areas where children or pets can get them.  The caution label on a box of Borax states this: Contains sodium tetraborate.  Avoid contact with eyes.  Do not take internally.

The Mackay Miner Newspaper

The other day, my husband happened to come across an old (The Mackay Miner) newspaper.  This newspaper began its journey reporting about Mackay and it’s surrounding areas on February 19, 1906, with its final print coming out on December 25, 1975.  The copy my husband came across was dated March 9, 1961, taking us back 54 years.

There were a couple of articles/ads that I thought was pretty interesting.  One being a photograph of the near completion of the “American Legion Hall”.

The other, was this ad, showing the prices for work shirts and grease at the Western Store, which closed its doors last year.  Wow, can you imagine buying two, new cotton work shirts for $3.49

A report given from the old http://mackayidaho1.blogspot.com, states that the original location of the Mackay Miner Newspaper was in a building that we now know as the Clock Cigar Store.  I took the following photo on April 2, 2013…..the building still stands on our main street.

If you would like to learn more about “The Mackay Miner”, you can go HERE and HERE.

AAAAhhhhhhh – I Finally Feel Clean

Wow, how we humans take things for granted.  Finally, after two weeks of not being able to bath or shower, per doctors orders, I couldn't believe how good my hot shower felt. 

After my knee surgery and being non-weight bearing for three days, then limited weight bearing for another 11 days with no baths or showers the entire time, I thought I was going to go totally berserk.  I don’t know how the pioneers did it…..going for many days without taking baths/showers.  I did, however, take many spit-baths……but, let’s face it, you really don’t ever feel clean just by taking spit-baths.  At least, I never did.  When I finally got to take my shower, I drained the hot water…..all of it!  Aaaahhhhh, modern luxuries…..I don’t think I will ever take my morning showers for granted, ever again!