respublica

Trash schedule

While we were down at our Huzzah cottage this past weekend my mind turned to our Collinsville trash pick-up. I'm kind of obsessive about trash and recycling and wanted to make sure of exactly what day ours would be picked up due to Monday being a holiday. When we turned onto our street coming home last night we saw ever single house on the block with their two trash carts out on the curb. This puzzled me because normally when a holiday is involved the pick-up is moved back one day.

So. Dale decided, just to be safe, he'd put our carts out. We normally get yard waste picked up on Monday and trash on Tuesday. I put out the yard waste. Still it bothered me that we had our  regular trash carts out so I went to the Republic Services website and learned that I was correct. The normal pick-up is moved back one day and we took our carts away from the curb. Hopefully this will be the correct move.

Now they're coming for my strawberries

This headline stopped me and had me exasperated.  "Don't Eat This Year's Strawberries-Unless You Clean Them With This Kitchen Staple"

We have a strawberry patch in our backyard and this year the crop of berries was unbelievably big. Strawberries just filled the small area behind our garage in its own raised bed. This is the third year for them and first time we've had a huge beautiful crop. So seeing this headline irritated and worried me.

In the end, the point of this story is: "strawberries are number one in the Dirty Dozen, meaning they often contain the most pesticides out of every other fruit or vegetable."

Well, that is not our problem thankfully. We used no pesticides on ours at all. But store bought berries may still have some residue and the way to get them at least partially safe is to clean them using water with vinegar in it. Or, buy organic strawberries.

I still say this article is a bit overdone. Here are some of our daily strawberries.

Flies

This season we have been inundated with flies flitting around the outside of our house. I have no idea what attracts them or why there are so many this year. But it's gotten really annoying. Last week I bought a couple of fly trap things which are plastic bags with some sort of killing powder in the bottom. You add water to the bag which works with the powder and then hang it up where the flies are worse. Once they get in, they can't get out.

Well, let me tell you these bags work, but they are also the grossest things ever. The flies really are attracted to the bag and get in and in and in and in until the bag is full of dead black flies. And, it smells to high heaven. Just taking it down to dispose of it is just awful.

After going through 3 of them with no end in sight I gave up with the gross-ness. I have to find another way to get these flies away from our front door, inside the garage and back deck. This has to be a banner year for flies.

I looked up what exactly attracts them and none really apply to us. For instance: heat radiating buildings, garbage, animal carcasses, bird droppings, sweet liquids, animal feces and light. If they are attracted to light, why are they on our covered, dark front porch and deck? None of the other items are around the house at all.

I have wasted a lot of energy on the front porch swatting at them with this gadget I bought many years ago. It looks like a small tennis racket, has a battery inside the handle and when you swing at a fly and hit it with the face of the racket a loud snap occurs and you've incinerated the fly. This works if you swing at the fly just right and it's sort of satisfying, but too many flies come and take it's place. And, I'm sure the neighbors wonder what the heck I'm doing.

It is a real pain this year.

One weird study

There is a survey group named, FitRated which found that 81 percent of Americans would work out if they were to receive cryptocurrency rewards.

Personally I very much doubt this. Most of that number of Americans probably don't have the slightest idea what cryptocurrency is and what you do with it or where you get it. There may well be 30 percent of those crypto knowledgeable Americans out there, but I'd like to hear about their work-outs and what the cryptocurrency value would be.

Also, 75 percent of Americans would sign up for gym memberships using cryptocurrencies. Seriously? I know a lot of people and not one has ever brought up the wonder of cryptocurrencies. So where are these people and where do we get some of this crypto money?

Helpful hints

Every now and then certain websites and news articles give advice on organizing or gardening. Today I came across two. The first was how to kill weeds without chemicals or bending and pulling. Pour boiling water onto the weeds which will kill them down to the roots. Sounds good except for two things. We'd need a lot of running back and forth to the stove to make more and more boiling water and worse, at least to me, this method also kills any good plant or grass that gets splashed. So this idea is down the drain....so to speak.

The second is ideas on how to organize your fridge. This is one I need, our fridge is not organized well and basically it's a cluttered mess. I periodically open the door and gaze into it wondering just how I can do better and nothing much comes to mind. This article recommends getting a bunch of clear organizer bins for produce, drinks, condiments etc. This looks quite nice and neat because the can stack or sit side by side and we see what is in them. I'd love to try this, but am not sure it wouldn't be a bit of a pain. We have pull out drawers which I find rather cumbersome so I would like to try anything else. Sometimes fruit or vegetables I put in the drawers are totally forgotten.

I do need to do something though.

Block This Caller

For months I've been inundated with calls and texts from various health insurance providers wanting my business. I have no idea how I got onto all these lists but it drives me crazy. They never give up. At some point I began blocking and deleting these numbers, but it does not stop. So this article caught my eye this morning. "How to Block a phone number on your iphone."

Go the the recents tab on the iphone and then tap the 'i" on the right for each number. This should give you the option to "block this caller". Do the same for irritating texts from the same groups.

Well nuts. This is the same technique I've been using all along and the problem is this does not block the number from calling again and again. All it does on the iPhone is silence the call so I don't hear it coming in. I want a way to actually not let their calls come through.

I know this is not an uncommon issue for others because we were at some event recently where a few people were also exasperated by this. It seems these health insurers have an open door to be total pests.

A Berry Good Time

In 2020 when we moved back to Collinsville one of the first things Dale planted in the back garden was strawberries. I confess I was skeptical about ever seeing any fruit because we tried them while at the seminary and this house back many years ago and not much came of them.

But this spring we have an almost never ending bounty of strawberries. I feared the local wild animals would scarf them up or peck them up, but this has happened very infrequently.  I've been picking a bunch the past few days. Here are some I picked this morning with many more still waiting. It's just such a thrill.

Good sized too.

 

 

It's that Oak Strings time of year

This really is a really bad year for Oak tree seed strings falling all over the place. I can't remember when we've been so ankle deep in these things. They're on the lawn, the driveway, the roof, the street, in our neighbors' yards. A total mess. Yesterday I filled two leaf bags full of them and this morning they are all over the place again. I swept another bag and then looked up at our roof. Oh, man, our gutters are going to need a cleaning as soon as it looks like there is an end to this. Hopefully today's predicted storms will not cause a gutter overflow.

Not only are they a mess, any movement over them by people, wind or cars causes dust to fall on everything.

I wish we'd had this tree taken down last fall like we had 4 other trees.

Our across the street neighbor's truck covered in this dust.

At last a local news outlet

Ever since the Collinsville Herald-Journal went out of business and the Belleville New Democrat pretty much stopped bothering with any news except from wire services, there has been no real way to find out what is going on locally.

But now comes a fairly recent addition to news where we live and that is the Collinsville Daily News. This news source has a website as well as the good use of Facebook. Finally there are news stories for Collinsville and the surrounding area. They even have the obituaries, local sports and civic news.  I hope they don't end up going the route the Belleville paper went by insisting on subscribing to read the stories. With the BND it is just not worth it. One the other hand, if the Collinsville Daily News finds they must do this, I may break down and subscribe if they stay local.

One plate for Illinois?

There was an Illinois House bill introduced recently which would do away with state drivers having two license plates. It would only require a plate on the rear of cars. Twenty states already have this in place and Illinois is somewhat behind the curve. It is likely the front plate is not necessary.

According to those promoting this bill, it would save the state 800,000 dollars a year in plate production.