Natural Ant and Mice Repellant

As I've complained about often here, we have a major Mouse problem every Spring and Fall. With all our wet weather again our mice have invited all their relatives to visit yet again.
Now I have no more traps this year, I found the secret Mouse and Ant leave us alone Elixir Peppermint Oil. Mice hate it. Ants hate it. Bugs hate it also, but I am in LOVE with it.
First I made up some Peppermint Castile Soap Spray.

1 gallon water
4 tablespoons peppermint castile soap (I found this at Walgreens)
I also added some peppermint oil to boost the peppermint odor
Combine the ingredients.

I then filled a spray bottle with it.
Spray the backs of counters, baseboards and all other areas you have problems. Do not rinse.

And now Ant and Mouse’s are BYE BYE

A Hetic Spring

Well things have been hopping crazy around here. Between the weather, my family and the garden, I've been running on empty. We're gonna be having another grandchild so I have lots of baby things to start making. The weather is slowly letting us get into the garden and I did get 50 lbs of potatoes planted. This is our 1st year that we are planning to grow enough to store all winter. But I still planted more than my new garden plan allotted for so I had to revamp the design again. I have over 300 hundred plants to start inside, There won't be a flat surface in my dining room that's not stuffed with newspaper cups with lights hanging over. Each year I have a unique (Well unigue to me) plant to grow in the garden, last year was Sorghum, this year is Luffa Gourds and Paprika Peppers. I didn't end up making any sorghum molasses but the animals sure loved eating it. I hope to do better drying the peppers and making our own smoked paprika. And I can't wait to have some homegrown luffa sponges to use.
After plowing and tilling the garden, not to mention planting 50lbs of potatoes I am proud to report that the homemade deodorant works fantastic. Though my hubby was a little surprised when I asked him to smell my armpit and tell me if my deodorant was working☺ That idea was a no go, but I can't smell any unwanted odor and no one is complaining, so I can only assume it'd working. Since I last posted I've made another batch of soap.
Tonight I start an 18 hour workshop at our Extension Center. It's all about Urban Home-steading Farmsteading  (they changed the name because of the now infamous trademarking of  Urban-Home-steading(s)) . It's supposed to teach us the skills, tools and strategies to live a simpler, self-sufficient life. So hopefully I'll have lots of new ideas to post in the coming weeks. Well we have 3 Birthdays this week, and I'm still not finished with making their presents so I had better get busy.

For the love of Fall, halfway up, and down...... that hill!

I may have been born in Missouri but I grew up in South Florida. The scuba diving was great there, but when you get down to the brass tacks, Florida just does not participate in Fall or hills either. But when I turned 17, I went off to the CIA (Not that CIA, the Colorado Institute of Art in Denver). There I was initiated in the lovely experience of learning to drive a 3speed Vega, (guess I’m showing my advanced age now) Anyhoo, back to the Vega - There I was initiated in the lovely experience of learning to drive a 3 speed Vega up gargantuan hills in downtown Denver traffic. My previous experience with driving up a hill in stop and go traffic revolved around sitting in a vehicle halfway up a bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway waiting for a boat to pass under the bridge. Not to mention that the vehicle was a Datsun (Here I go showing my age again) with a automatic transmission.

  But back to the gargantuan hill and the Vega (are you confused yet?) The two things that I remember most of that experience were, the Chinese fire drills that we had every morning, when stopped at the red light halfway up that hill. I would inevitably pop the clutch and be to petrified to restart the car and get it up the hill without hitting the car in back of me. I will say this, Come on people I had Florida plates, you should have realized no hills and stopped at least 25 car lengths behind me so I could get up that hill ☻.


The second thing I remember about that hill and the reason I’m writing this post. Is the day I drove down that hill and fell in love with Autumn. I’m not kidding, the exact moment I fell in love with fall was a crisp sunny afternoon with a hint of wood smoke in the air. I was driving down a tree lined Denver street in a Vega. The traffic stopped, a slight puff of wind sent these gorgeous red and yellow leaves floating across my windshield. And it hit me, I took a deep breath in, looked at the beauty around me and promptly popped the clutch and hit the car in front of me. But I was Hooked on Fall from then on.

I love this time of year. We’ve had our first fire in the woodstove, the top of my maple tree is beginning to redden, And this weekend were expecting our first frost. Happy Autumn