Apocalyptic Homesteading (Day 1248)
Hello Everyone!
Not the best rest, Frigging pestilence, Taking down the tent & If it is not broken I probably do not own it!
Alright, I am starting my writing routine right on time this evening... even though I kind of want to zone out some more before doing so. I guess that the little bump to my morale (by being on time) will do much more for me than the 'zoning out' will so go figure.
Last night, I was not up too terribly late... but once again I awoke repeatedly throughout the evening much like I did the night before. This time though I kept waking up because the damned fleas kept crawling on me... which yeah is rather annoying.
I had noticed over the last few days that they were starting to get bad from the warmer temperatures... but thought that I had them under control after dosing all the dogs with nitenpyram... but that just was not the case. As I have said countless times before the pestilence has been playing fucking hell on me my whole journey here... and no matter what I do I just cannot seem to rid myself of them.
Since the pests had reached the point of disrupting my sleep... I decided that today I would take the time to get a bit extreme with them... and see if I could put a dent in their population by submerging all my bedding (and pillows) into some one hundred and forty degree (sixty degree Celcius) water. Apparently from what I have been reading that temperature water will not only kill the fleas and their eggs... but will also kill mites and their eggs as well.
Not having the convenience of a washing machine has assuredly played its part in my ongoing battle with the pests (because otherwise I would nuke them all with borax) but per usual there is no damned reason to complain about things that I cannot change. I have also been washing my clothes (and other laundry) in my used bath water... which is never at the kind of heat necessary to kill those buggers off.
Not wanting to struggle with keeping everything submerged in the tub... I decided to clean out the barrel that I have been using to wash everything in... and then use it to soak all the bedding in. Using the barrel also made it so that I could use less hot water... and not have to pump the tub out between each of the two loads that I had to do... because I could just tilt the barrel over instead.
Anyways, once I got the first load soaking I decided that it was time to take the tent down that I had setup on the deck... before it could rain again and fill it with water. The whole process was rather easy... but when I began folding it up I realized that it was still damp on the bottom where it came into contact with the deck... so I had to drag it to a dry part of the deck... and let it dry out fully before folding it up.
All in all, that tent has seen much better days... but it should work for my purposes as long as I can find some kind of plastic (or get a large enough tarp) to cover it with. The only real challenge (aside from the door not really closing) will be where the 'groundsheet' (the attached floor) material is worn out on the sides... which will allow water in.
As with most things that I own the tent is damaged and/or broken... but lacking anything else it is going to have to work... much like everything else! At least I got that new cheap tent to sleep in... and although it will be incredibly cramped for me and the dogs... at least it will be somewhere that we can stay dry at.
Well, I have now begun to think a bit too hard about dragging all my gear from place to place over the years, the beating it has all taken... and how time after time all my efforts were for naught... which yeah I am allowing to sour my desire to keep writing this evening. I hope that everyone is well and in good spirits. Ciao.
Do you remember the time when we lived in the highlands and came back from camping, standing at the front door the fleas covered my feet. I bought a big box of Borax and poured it all over the floors, Donny said it looked like cocaine on the floors, lol. I read somewhere that it cut the fleas when they crawled through it. It worked because we did not have them anymore.
Yeah I remember that and think of it every time I wind up having to deal with fleas. Unfortunately Borax is not good for dogs. Food grade (or animal safe) Diatomaceous earth works super well but I am tired of breathing it.
I did not know that it was bad for dogs, poor Sebastian, :(
That was such a great dog. One of the first real things that I ever wrote was the story of him getting killed by that monster sized alligator. The look on all the kid's in class (and the teacher's) face when I read that aloud is stamped in my memory forever. I think it was our first writing assignment after summer vacation and the prompt was 'What did you do over the summer' or something like that. I think I wrote it in two parts and the first part was about camping on an island.
Yes he was a good dog for you kids. Having to work so much, camping was always something I looked forward to doing with ya'll.
Those camping trips had a huge impact on me and definitely helped to shape the course of my life. Doing it two weeks every summer and one week every spring was amazing.
Yes it did, I loved it not only for me but all of you. It would be hard to do now since there are no fish houses to get water and ice from.
Yeah and I doubt that the islands are as nice as they once were not to mention how many more people are probably using them. The litter and rats are probably nuts at this point.
Some of the islands we camped on are underwater now, others only have a couple of trees left on them. The big island where Victor broke his arm is one with a couple of trees, and the same with the one to the north, but the one to the south still looks the same. These are the three islands across the channel from the boat ramp.
The last time I camped with Kat and all the grandkids was in 2017 on Judahs Island, it is now two islands. I would not camp without a dog to keep the rats away. Litter is not bad, most people do clean up after their selves but finding a fresh hole in the woods to dig for a toilet is a problem.
Ha! I wondered about the toilet holes! It is amazing that they have not put portajons on them all by now given how heavily the islands are used.