7/25/06

Well there are three things to report since L.'s update.

1. The ants are back and in full invasion mode. Big black carpenter ants. There seem to be concentrations around the NE and SE corners. We have ant trap/baits in all corners. That had done the trick but they must be wearing off a bit. About 1 in 3 ants is dead so it's not completely worn off. We've been vacuuming them up and using citrus cleaner (L. read online that ants don't like that stuff…) I think we're going to try some drops that we saw @ Downtown Home and Garden. Will get back to you on that.
2. The sink seems to be fixed. We had tried to snake, then plunger, then use a CO2 cartridge (made by CLR) None worked. We then put in some "microbial clog eater" stuff. It seems a little sketchy esp. since it was 3x the cost of drano (we don't want to use that stuff since no one seems to know where the water drains). Anyway we left that and didn't use the sink for 24 hrs. It was still clogged yesterday but then we CO2 cartridged and plugered again and all's cleared up!! Much better now.
   
3. When we pulled in the drive yesterday @ 8PM a top to a huge cherry tree had blown off and was still attached about 40' up. We called emergency U of M services since it was blocking the driveway (no research or emergency access). The # is XXX-XXXX. They seemed a little confused but within an hour there was a crew out which sawed the small stuff then attached the tree top to their truck and drug it down. They chopped up the big pieces and threw them to the side. The whole thing took them 30 minutes, pretty impressive! This morning there was another Grounds crew that let themselves through the gate and shipped up all the small pieces (completely unnecessary given that we're in a forest). Just hope they don't charge SNRE for it.

Anyway, all's well at Saginaw; the fish are jumping, the woodchuck (fatt) is chowing away, the barn's clan, and the boletes are out.