Going Buggy

There's this project house next door that occasionally has the sounds of nailing and sawing. It was built alongside this house and was engaged in life then, but not now. It looks dark and abandoned, like this was before someone lovingly saw the potential here and brought it back to life. The house next door is still waiting for its Fairy Godmother.

Project House is on the other side of the fence

Nothing precise has emerged about how these homes fell into ruin. We generally learned the farmers had died away, the heirs sold off the land and kept the houses as rentals until they tired of that.  What is clear is these homes are part of Zamora's history, and when we mention the home to other farmers, their smiles light up as they tell us about coming here to play and swim in the summer.  

It's pretty rough. Chicken wire covers the upstairs window next door and the pool stands with green sludge that fills partway with rainwater. Everything is overgrown, but the bones are there - you can see through the windows the architectural details, hardwood floors, and layout.

Our only problem is with the pool. The Mosquito Vector modestly intervenes, and Mosquito Fish dine around the clock, but mosquitos continue to breed happily here at an alarming rate.

This irritates us to no end. Armed with a hundred dollars' worth of Skin So Soft, we douse ourselves before going outside and are inevitablly driven indoors an hour before dusk by the army of mosquitos relentlessly searching for a spot on our arm we might have missed.

There are plants that detract mosquitos and those will be clever additions to the landscape plantings. Cintronella Grass grows wild here but unfortunately smells like citronella, but it might be alright in outlying areas; marigolds we plant already, and there are others: Lemon Grass, Catnip and Ageratum. Probably all of them will end up here.

And a Bat. Did you know a bat can eat 1,000 mosquitos an hour?  We have a few bats that flop around in summer and fall, and now know what draws them here. A bat house was suggested in a distant tree, which at first sounded intriguing -- to create our own little supercharged mosquito chomping team of Superheroes.

Pool beyond the cyclone fence, mid to upper right side

But considering bats carry transmitable viruses like rats do, the temptation vanished almost instantly. The local septic guy who is big and burly told us he and his brothers use Skin So Soft around the clock - if it's good enough for them it's good enough for us! But we'll never stop hoping for a chance to pour a bucket of bleach into the pool or sump pump the standing water out altogether.