This year at the beginning of the summer I instituted a rule: Nothing with a screen between noon and 8 pm.
No t.v., no computer, no video games, no ipod. Strangely enough, I kind of think the kids were excited about it in the beginning, this new rule that would really mix everything up. Only at first did I have a little trouble enforcing the rule, and that was mostly because I would forget about it! And of course now that the season is winding down and the late-summer boredom has set in, it is harder yet. Regardless, the rule worked really well all summer, and I'll definitely do it again next year. The kids played outside so much...like we used to when we were kids! You know, before all this fancy schmancy hand-held technology. HA! We're old!
Because of my no-screen rule, all summer I was supplying constant ideas of new things they could do outside, or suggesting something to draw, make out of dough, paint (including objects), or construct out of other things. We also spent a pretty decent amount of time at the beach. Nothing like an endless amount of sand and water to really make a bunch of happy shorties.
That's a great thing about this area - how close we are to so many beaches. And (amazingly) they're clean. And not crowded! Of course Lake Michigan water is body-numbing frigid most of the summer but hey, you get hot, you jump in, you cool off....quickly. What more can you ask for?
Since we've lived here, our family has unofficially chosen one particular beach as our favorite, and we go there more than any of the other area beaches. It's a Lake Michigan beach, and most of the summer it was fantastic. There's a little 'pool' area that's warmer than the lake, a little stream from the pool into the lake, tons of cool rocks and fossils to collect, bigger rocks for climbing, lots of beach glass hunting for me, and the sand is pretty fine and light. It's a great spot.
Except for the second half of August. Oh Goodness.
We've visited this beach twice in the past two weeks, and ended up running out of there after only about a half an hour, chased out by those nasty little biting black flies. I've experienced this quite a bit, in quite a few places around Wisconsin. I'm sure it happens other places but I just don't know about it. Is it the lake? The sand? Obviously they wait until the end of the summer to appear...but why? And why do they have to follow you and bite you and make it so dang miserable that you have to leave?! My friend told me yesterday that it hurts when they bite you because they are literally ripping off a chunk of your skin. Awesome.
Where we live we also have big-time mosquito issues. Wisconsin doesn't spray, so we have to take it into our own hands. Luckily, Shaklee H2 works great as a natural repellent for your body, but we do go through our share of Off and have even stooped to spray the yard because it was just so hard to be outside without it. Yes, I know. Bad chemicals. But what's the alternative? Don't go outside? I'm still trying to figure that one out.
Since I compost and we eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, I often have a lot of fruit flies in the kitchen. Naturally there are ants, and once in a while some moth or other weird freaky bug comes wandering in to die a most hideous death at the hands (or paws) of my cats.
What's an eco-friendly mom to do? Spray the crap out of everything with chemicals and hope for the best? Well, maybe. But not until I get so fed up there's no other choice! Until then, I try to control it all as greenly and as safely as I can.
Here are just a few things I have found and used:
A little bowl of apple cider vinegar with a drop of dish soap mixed in lures those pesky fruit flies to a liquidy death. Works great.
Repel mosquitoes safely with H2 wipes or all-purpose formula sprayed on.
You can even spray fruit flies right out of the air with the H2 all-purpose. It's kind of fun!
If you know where the ants are coming in, pour some cornmeal around and the greedy little bastards will snatch it up and take it back to the nest where all their greedy little bastard friends will eat it. Unfortunately for them, they can't digest it, so it swells up inside their disgusting little bodies and the greedy little bastards burst. Whoopee!
I've also heard that drawing a chalk line works cause the ants won't walk across it, and sprinkling baby powder around for the same reason.
These solutions are all fine and good, but I'm out of apple cider vinegar, and I don't know where my ants are coming in...they just appear in the middle of a blank wall, the little teleporting freaks! This spring my super-efficient and green friend Libby gave me this awesome bug-zapping contraption. Looks just like a tennis racket, but has a little electrical charge that zaps any of those rotten little fliers right out of the air. WHAT FUN. When we first got it, we would literally go seek out the bugs, like turn on the porch light and wait beneath it. We sure are easily entertained, but in all seriousness this thing is awesome. No chemicals! I even got a couple ants with it even though they weren't flying. Oh, and the crackle it makes when you get a bug is oh so satisfying...
Of course all good things must come to an end, and the good bug-zapping tennis racket unfortunately came to an end. When something is that much fun, it is irresistible to the shorter people that are always hanging around, and you know how badly they treat their toys? Ya, same story. So now what?
Well...I have a spider. He moved in over the kitchen sink the weekend we were out of town, and I've left him there for 2 weeks now. He's caught ants and fruit flies and who knows what else...it's hard to tell what the little mummies might have started off as. I am one of those people who really do NOT like spiders. There are some crazies who catch them in their house and set them free outside. Crazies!! Not me. I usually smash them, spray them, electrocute them, flush them, whatever. Their demise is my comfort.
But not this time. This little daddy long-legs is my friend and I like it. I even put a chunk of overripe banana under his web to attract the fruit flies so he wouldn't move away! Yep, I just keep getting nuttier and nuttier over here.
At any rate, my new friend certainly doesn't help with what's going on out in the yard or at the beach, but bugs are allowed to be outside, I suppose. Next year I will get a new bug-zapping tennis racket to take everywhere with me! In the meantime, just call me spider mom!
No t.v., no computer, no video games, no ipod. Strangely enough, I kind of think the kids were excited about it in the beginning, this new rule that would really mix everything up. Only at first did I have a little trouble enforcing the rule, and that was mostly because I would forget about it! And of course now that the season is winding down and the late-summer boredom has set in, it is harder yet. Regardless, the rule worked really well all summer, and I'll definitely do it again next year. The kids played outside so much...like we used to when we were kids! You know, before all this fancy schmancy hand-held technology. HA! We're old!
Because of my no-screen rule, all summer I was supplying constant ideas of new things they could do outside, or suggesting something to draw, make out of dough, paint (including objects), or construct out of other things. We also spent a pretty decent amount of time at the beach. Nothing like an endless amount of sand and water to really make a bunch of happy shorties.
That's a great thing about this area - how close we are to so many beaches. And (amazingly) they're clean. And not crowded! Of course Lake Michigan water is body-numbing frigid most of the summer but hey, you get hot, you jump in, you cool off....quickly. What more can you ask for?
Since we've lived here, our family has unofficially chosen one particular beach as our favorite, and we go there more than any of the other area beaches. It's a Lake Michigan beach, and most of the summer it was fantastic. There's a little 'pool' area that's warmer than the lake, a little stream from the pool into the lake, tons of cool rocks and fossils to collect, bigger rocks for climbing, lots of beach glass hunting for me, and the sand is pretty fine and light. It's a great spot.
Except for the second half of August. Oh Goodness.
We've visited this beach twice in the past two weeks, and ended up running out of there after only about a half an hour, chased out by those nasty little biting black flies. I've experienced this quite a bit, in quite a few places around Wisconsin. I'm sure it happens other places but I just don't know about it. Is it the lake? The sand? Obviously they wait until the end of the summer to appear...but why? And why do they have to follow you and bite you and make it so dang miserable that you have to leave?! My friend told me yesterday that it hurts when they bite you because they are literally ripping off a chunk of your skin. Awesome.
Where we live we also have big-time mosquito issues. Wisconsin doesn't spray, so we have to take it into our own hands. Luckily, Shaklee H2 works great as a natural repellent for your body, but we do go through our share of Off and have even stooped to spray the yard because it was just so hard to be outside without it. Yes, I know. Bad chemicals. But what's the alternative? Don't go outside? I'm still trying to figure that one out.
Since I compost and we eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, I often have a lot of fruit flies in the kitchen. Naturally there are ants, and once in a while some moth or other weird freaky bug comes wandering in to die a most hideous death at the hands (or paws) of my cats. What's an eco-friendly mom to do? Spray the crap out of everything with chemicals and hope for the best? Well, maybe. But not until I get so fed up there's no other choice! Until then, I try to control it all as greenly and as safely as I can.
Here are just a few things I have found and used:
A little bowl of apple cider vinegar with a drop of dish soap mixed in lures those pesky fruit flies to a liquidy death. Works great.
Repel mosquitoes safely with H2 wipes or all-purpose formula sprayed on.
You can even spray fruit flies right out of the air with the H2 all-purpose. It's kind of fun!
If you know where the ants are coming in, pour some cornmeal around and the greedy little bastards will snatch it up and take it back to the nest where all their greedy little bastard friends will eat it. Unfortunately for them, they can't digest it, so it swells up inside their disgusting little bodies and the greedy little bastards burst. Whoopee!
I've also heard that drawing a chalk line works cause the ants won't walk across it, and sprinkling baby powder around for the same reason.
These solutions are all fine and good, but I'm out of apple cider vinegar, and I don't know where my ants are coming in...they just appear in the middle of a blank wall, the little teleporting freaks! This spring my super-efficient and green friend Libby gave me this awesome bug-zapping contraption. Looks just like a tennis racket, but has a little electrical charge that zaps any of those rotten little fliers right out of the air. WHAT FUN. When we first got it, we would literally go seek out the bugs, like turn on the porch light and wait beneath it. We sure are easily entertained, but in all seriousness this thing is awesome. No chemicals! I even got a couple ants with it even though they weren't flying. Oh, and the crackle it makes when you get a bug is oh so satisfying...
Of course all good things must come to an end, and the good bug-zapping tennis racket unfortunately came to an end. When something is that much fun, it is irresistible to the shorter people that are always hanging around, and you know how badly they treat their toys? Ya, same story. So now what?
Well...I have a spider. He moved in over the kitchen sink the weekend we were out of town, and I've left him there for 2 weeks now. He's caught ants and fruit flies and who knows what else...it's hard to tell what the little mummies might have started off as. I am one of those people who really do NOT like spiders. There are some crazies who catch them in their house and set them free outside. Crazies!! Not me. I usually smash them, spray them, electrocute them, flush them, whatever. Their demise is my comfort.
But not this time. This little daddy long-legs is my friend and I like it. I even put a chunk of overripe banana under his web to attract the fruit flies so he wouldn't move away! Yep, I just keep getting nuttier and nuttier over here.
At any rate, my new friend certainly doesn't help with what's going on out in the yard or at the beach, but bugs are allowed to be outside, I suppose. Next year I will get a new bug-zapping tennis racket to take everywhere with me! In the meantime, just call me spider mom!
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