Yellow Jackets + Repurpose + DE

Reuse to save money? I repurpose the Kraft Parmesan Cheese shaker. It holds the DE for outdoor fly control without have to buy something else to apply the dust. It's free=cheap. I have four shakers, full, ready for use.  The shakers of the Kraft products and other products are all over my house. They hold baking soda for cleaning in the bathroom.

I would have shown all four shakers, but I tripped on my extra-tall step, slammed into the rocker, and knocked all four of these off. I could only reach two.

My poor hens do not like going near peaches with yellow jackets on them. The hens avoid their food. I did not take a picture of the hundred (not kidding) yellow jackets because I do not feel like trying to bend over and keep my balance while trying to hold a camera steady.

A yellow jacket invasion could cause a tremendous problem for me or anyone who attempts to walk or mow in my yard. If you have ever been in a swarm of yellow jackets pouring from the ground, you know what I mean. They will chase you even into the house. Ask me how I know.

If fruit trees are left with fallen fruit, yellow jackets form nests under the trees, attracted by food. Wouldn't you move next to fruit tree or grocery store where the food was abundant and free? If all you had to do was dig a little hole and had no rent or furniture to move, it would be  a good deal.

I have a shaker of DE (diatomaceous earth) that I use for fly control. So, I took it and heavily sprinkled it on the yellow jackets. Even though covered in the dust, they flew or hovered. I fled.

The picture below is without DE.

This one below has DE sprinkled on it.

The DE reduced the flies on the fruit in the box by about 90%. Plus, any fly eggs will be destroyed by the DE. I feed the DE to my girls to reduce parasites. People eat DE every day for their health.

Now, all feverish I have to go put some more DE and leaves over the fruit. Exbf will remove all the fruit tomorrow. But, it seems I must act soon before the yellow jackets decide this is a good place to live, a yard with abundance.

There were three or four one day and a hundred the next. I don't need holes in the ground and swarming yellow jackets. So, no, I do not feel well enough to do this!

There is about 15 or 20 pounds of produce in a box waiting to be dumped in for the hens. Right now, they are in the yard, but I want to lie down lots today, nap a bit, and cannot leave them unattended. Okay, sometimes I don't see or hear them for hours while they roam the yard. But, they won't leave the yard. I just worry a dog will chase them. I can hear when they are in trouble if I am not asleep or lying in the bedroom with the ac on.

By the way, my hens are terrified of the DE cloud. It could potentially harm their lungs and mine. Now, they are terrified of the shaker. If I pick it up or they see it, they run for their lives.  I use a Kraft Parmesan cheese shaker for the DE. There is quite a cloud that forms, especially in a slight breeze. They squawk and flee as fast as their legs will take them if they see me dusting 15 ft from them. Smart girls?

From the box in the picture, I took several huge slices of watermelon and some other fruit. I have bend over to place the watermelon. If I don't place it on the ground, just tossing it all, inevitably the watermelon lands upside down. Since the hens cannot turn it over, they have to peck through the watermelon rind to eat it. I try to help them out. This time, I almost fell on my face...seriously a face plant in watermelon. I am off-balance from the sinus infection, fever, and general malaise.

I made a decision--I will dry all clothes in the dryer! I cannot hang clothes in the sun. Bending even to the small table on which I place the basket would just be too much. Plus, the antibiotic will cause a reaction if I am in the sun too much.

Your turn
Have you ever gotten into a swarm of yellow jackets? Seen it happen to anyone? Seen the consequences? How did you rid your yard of a yellow jacket nest? Do you ever repurpose shakers? Have you ever used DE?

Would You Be More Frugal If....you lived in this tenement?

Frugality in the early 1900s was the same as ours in a few ways and different in many other ways. One major difference I will share with you. Thanks to preservation and research done by others, I had the chance to experience how tenement dwellers lived and how they paid for their gas usage for cooking.

While in New York City, visiting my daughter, I chose the museums I wanted to visit. Of course, I went to visit my daughter, but I did want to see a bit of the city. She wanted to take me to the Statue of Liberty.

Instead, I chose other venues, choosing one she did not want to visit and declaring I wanted to go there for my birthday! How is that for getting your own way? Really, she liked it once she got there. I knew she would or I would not have insisted.

Would you be more frugal with your cooking if you dropped a dime into a gas meter to start gas in your stove, and the gas went off when you used a dime's worth of cooking gas? That's what I thought! I would be more frugal, too. That is how tenement houses kept residents current on their gas bills...pay upfront!

When we visited  the Tenement Museum, we all learned how people lived at the turn of the twentieth century in a tenement.

There was a little gas meter near the stove in the kitchen. Renters deposited a dime and the gas ran for ten cents worth; whatever that amount was and however long the stove would burn, we were never told. There would be no accounting later and no one to ask for an extension for what was used or credit to get gas before it was paid for by a dime in the meter.

I would imagine that lots of one-pot meals were prepared. Did you ever consider that one-pot meals consumed less energy to cook? I didn't consider how tenement dwellers  might need to conserve energy usage or how they would do so until I started thinking about this post as I cooked.

Have you ever cooked a one-pot meal to conserve energy? I have not unless you consider how I cook meat for 24 meals in the oven at one time. Yes, I stated I wanted to use the oven once for energy conservation, but not once have I feared the gas/electricity would suddenly be cut off in the middle of my cooking.

Cooking pots of beans is not a money-saving ploy for me. Yes, I can cook and have food for many meals if I cook beans. But, never in the back of my mind have I ever worried I could use up a limited amount of energy available at my home. Of course, cooking to get a couple of cups of beans is just not practical, considering how long they must soak and cook.

Maybe that would curb my conspicuous consumption of energy used by my stove. By the way, I am frugal but would be considered extravagant to anyone in a tenement.

One pot meals would be the way to go if 4 quarters had to be deposited before I could cook anything. (You know everything, almost everything, requires multiple quarters these days!)

Right now, I am cooking pasta shells for two meals. But, there would be pasta for a week in that pot if I feared my dime's (quarters') worth of gas might not last long.

Has anyone been to the Tenement Museum? If you are going to NYC, I would highly recommend it. "It is the first museum in the United States to preserve a tenement and have it designated a National Historic Site." This is how many emigrants lived. It is educational if you need home school projects to do on vacation.

Has anyone ever had to pay a meter in the kitchen to get gas to cook?

Money and a Child--Me

Even as a child I was mindful of money. Having it was important. After all, isn’t this one of the differences in children and adults—having money? I had no job, so I had to be creative. I learned early, around age four, to maximize my chances of having money. Collecting Coke or other drink bottles for the deposit was just one of my methods of getting money.

I lived in the era of recyclable bottles. Bottles were a boon! I could get two cents for recycling one bottle. Since Cokes and candy were a nickel apiece, it didn’t take long to accumulate the necessary funds. Of course, every child wants both Coke and candy, finding enough bottles in one week was sort of difficult. Usually, I just settled for the candy--a Baby Ruth.You see, I was not allowed out of the yard to make the big bucks.

The best I could hope for was that someone would throw one into the ditch in front of our house in the rural area in which I lived. Since there were three of us children (then four children) collecting bottles for deposits, chances were slim that I would find a bottle. To make matters worse, I did not live on a main road. Occasionally, and only for a specific reason were we allowed to walk down the road. Reasons? To go pick plums. (for a few weeks) To go on an errand where I was allowed to ride my bike to the store and go onto the main highway. To walk to a friend’s house. Maybe!

Later, we lived in a neighborhood where the chances of finding a bottle were greater. Then, we moved back to Memphis and we were once again relegated to finding bottles thrown out on the highway. No matter where we went when we were in town, we found stray bottles in order to collect the deposit.

We never missed the opportunity to gather bottles even though we scarcely had the chance. We did manage to get ten cents to buy the occasional candy bar or coke or both. Hallelujah! Sometimes, we claimed Coke bottles brought home full of Coke. Sadly, this rarely happened. I suppose I was a deprived child, forced to subsist on and quench my thirst with water instead of Coke.

We bothered our father to allow us to keep change if we were sent into the store for a purchase or if we took money and ran an errand. Since I was the oldest, I was the biggest pest. Rarely did he ever give me anything when I pestered him except grief.

Even though I wanted to buy candy, I also wanted just to amass money. While my younger siblings found joy in having more coins, I knew from an early age that having large coins was the key. They played with, counted, lost, and frittered away a handful of pennies. If they had a nickel, I could always count on one of them to trade me the nickel for five of my pennies. To my credit, I did explain why it would be best to keep their nickel and how foolish they were being. Those little kids were overjoyed with their good fortune, while I was celebrating having silly siblings.

You might say, “Okay, Linda. You were 7 and they were 6 and 4. You were just older and had learned about coins.” I say, “How about when I was 10 and they were 9 and 7?” See, they just kept wanting pennies while I wanted to get dollars for my quarters and a five dollar bill for my five ones.

I think this strong desire and ability to take small amounts and save and consolidate until I reached my goal of more money has served me well. I was never tempted to fritter away my money even though I really did want Cokes and candy. I did spend some of my money on these small pleasures, but I valued saving more than I valued having a constant supply if candy.

This attitude still serves me well. I paid off my mortgage after years of deprivation, skimping, saving and patching together a living for a few years.

Oh, please tell me how you collected bottles? When? Where? Did you have a ready stash? Live behind a store?