I woke up this morning and at first thought it was Thursday.
The swallows are driving DH nuts, haha. (picture Bill Murray in Caddyshack, but with birds instead of a gopher, LOL). I had emailed this bird repellent company with a question about their repellent spray and they emailed back that it doesn't work too well on these types of birds and she asked for some pictures of the area we want to get them away from. She recommended netting, which is funny because DH was just in town at the lumber store and I think he bought some. But, the good news, he learned from the lumber store guy, is that these birds only do this for like 2 weeks at the beginning of summer. He said if you can just keep taking out their nesting material they are trying to leave, they will be done with this annoyance in a couple of weeks. Keeping fingers crossed! I also just read that removing their nesting material every couple of days, for a about a week, and they will get tired of trying to build there and move on. The beams are like 22 feet up! DH finally resorted to getting out his
big gas powered leaf blower and blowing their stuff down and blowing at
them when they tried to come back. Even today, they seem to have lessened their pursuit.
The propane company came to fill up our neighbors, so they filled up ours too. I was really hoping it would be another month before I'd have that big bill. Our tank was still almost 40% full, but oh well. We got it filled up with 400 gallons. The price was $1.15/gallon, which I didn't think was too bad. Seems like it was higher last fill up. This fill up should last us a good long time now, I'd think. We won't be heating the shop next winter, to the extent we did this winter, living in it. We're still using propane for showers. The kitchen and laundry room hot water (and guest baths) run off of an electric water heater, as well as our furnace is electric/heat pump. I would think this should last us now until next summer.
Every single time I complain about M-Turks being a slow day or week, boom, I suddenly have a great day with it, so here I am complaining.....this week I'm struggling to even get a few dollars per day, making it hard to reach my $5/day goal.
It doesn't sound like we will be getting our mid year bonus. I'm a bit surprised, really. They made the sales goal for this year at the end of last year, but then management changed the "game", so to speak. They terminated the contract with our biggest manufacturer and went with a smaller mfg. Sales were then expected to be less (quite a bit) but at higher profit margins. Even so, there would still be no way to meet that original sales goal now. BUT, this mfg is giving us a guaranteed monthly payment, for this first year, which is almost what we were making a month from the original company. So, while we are not recording the higher sales we used to get, we are getting the income......but our bonus is based on sales, not income. and another but...of course the management still gets their bonus's (ahhh...the double edged sword of being in payroll and accounting and knowing stuff....). Big bummer.
Did you have a generator installed since your heat is electric based?
ReplyDeleteFor when the power goes out during the winter?
Not yet, but it's on our list of wants. We asked our neighbors if they have one and said they do not and luckily (in 10 years) have never needed one. We do have a standalone generator we could use in an emergency. And the shop heat (with bathroom/shower) is not electric. Luckily, here we don't get the wind and rain storms and power outages like we did in our other part of the country we lived in
Deleteand my understanding, even with a propane furnace, it still need electricity to run the furnace fan/blower
DeleteWe have a propane furnace and a generator for our whole house. The furnace works when the electricity goes out. Only certain lights are hooked to the generator as well as the fridge, freezer and furnace. It was expensive but losing an entire freezer of meat isn't cheap either.
DeleteWe have cross beams on our front porch that birds wanted to build on and made a real mess on our porch every spring. We bought some spikes online that line the top of the beams and are almost invisible to the naked eye unless you know to look for them. No nests up there since. It's a pain to set up, but we tried a lot of other solutions and none worked. We did have a persistent robin who tried to build her nest on my front porch light and I had to remove it multiple times before she moved on. (The year before I didn't catch her in time and DH refused to move her once she laid eggs. LOL)
ReplyDeleteLife in the country, as my brother says. :-)
I think that's DH, too...if they built it and laid eggs he'd have to leave it, haha. It's mostly just the bird pooping on the patio and chairs that we don't want.
DeleteI was going to suggest some spiky things a church uses. There are also some strips with triangles with the pointy tops that keep birds away. It seems like the leaf blower is easier than installing bird netting.
ReplyDeleteyes, the leaf blower does seem easier, at this point. Hopefully, they are just a temporary nuisance, like we've been told. Otherwise we'll try the netting and see if that helps. (I know DH isn't too excited to get up 22 ft on a ladder, so hoping it's temporary)
DeleteI worked in HR for 20 years and know what you mean about the double-edged sword of "knowing stuff" but having to keep quiet about it!
ReplyDeleteyep!
Delete