Solar Panels & Worms

Well our solar panel drama continues. Shortly after I posted my last entry, I found out (through the Vendor's FACEBOOK page) that they were actually mistaken in advising us that we would be eligible for the treasury grant. So we are back to relying on the IRS to reimburse a bulk of the cost of our solar panels.

We have reviewed the IRS code and language, and can see where our vendor gets their opinion, but the conflicting information from other vendors and web research still makes me very nervous.

Even more irritating is that we STILL do not have an installation date. After I sent the sales rep a nasty email a few weeks ago and CC'd the President of their company, they gave me a "tentative" date of April 20th. I would think that since that date is now only 3 weeks away they should be able to confirm it now, but they are avoiding my contact efforts.

For the record, our vendor is Astralux Solar and I do not recommend them.

On a more positive note, the worms are working out well. We made a bin for them using blue storage tubs and have 2 pounds of worms (aproximately 2000 of the little guys) working away on coffee grounds, wilted lettuce, egg shells, the Financial Times, and all kinds of other goodies. It took a couple of days to get it stabalized and we did have some odor and runaways at first, but the bin is virtually odorless now and when you open it to sift through it, you can't even tell that they are working on old moldy table scraps.

So, in summary: Worms = Highly Recommend; Astralux = Stay Away

Also, we're expecting a baby "any day now", keep posted or check the baby blog for more information!

20 Sights You See In Guadalajara

1. Shoe Stores. Lots of them. Today I counted 10 on one block.
   
2. Buses (Camiones). But don't expect to find a route map or a schedule anywhere. The locals seem to have the routes memorized.
3. Fruit Stands. These come in two forms -- larger tiendas (corner stores) that prop open their garage like doors every day and sell all the fruits and veggies you'd buy in the grocery store and then some, or small corner stands that slice up melons and sell them in a plastic cup.
4. Litter. Seems there has never been a "Keep Mexico Beautiful" campaign. And good luck finding a trash can.
5. Concrete. Houses, buildings, streets, sidewalks...everything is made of concrete. And along with this, you will find in the window of every hardware store wheel-barrow's and bags of concrete mix.
6. Churches. One cab driver told me there are 450 churches in Guadalajara...Catholic of course. Most of them have bells that they ring on the hour, half hour, sometimes on the quarter hour, and occasionally at other times that don't seem to have much logic (maybe it is a call to mass?). Most churches have either a fountain or a "kioska" (a gazebo) in their courtyard.
7. Kids in Uniform. Seems most of the kids go to private school, especially the younger ones. The little kids wear green pants with green sweaters, the teenage girls wear the good old schoolgirl plaid skirts with white polo shirts. To dress it up, they wear funky socks.
8. People in Pickups. I'm pretty sure it is illegal in most places in the states to ride in the back of a pickup truck (no seat belts), but here it is common place. I've seen cops riding in the back of trucks, little kids standing in traffic, and tired workers taking naps in the back of trucks without back ends to keep them in.
   
9. Homeless People with Deformed Feet & Legs. Seems the Rotary Club might have missed Guadalajara. To their credit though, the homeless people are pretty few and far between (considering the population is 4 million)
   
10. Opticos. Almost every block in the city has an optical store. They've also all got a "mini-super" (a tiny convenience store), a shoe store, a paper store (because gift wrap gets its own store here) and a costume shop.
    
11. Dulces (sweets). Three forms: candy, ice cream, and "pan de dulces" (bakeries). As a result, you will also notice that most women over 30 pack on a few extra pounds.
12. Homes. Tons and tons of them. The city seems to have a never ending sprawl of residential areas. The houses are all skinny and built adjacent to each other, like row homes. Interestingly, this seems to be true of all income classes--we went on a drive around what I would call a "richie neighborhood" and those houses were adjoined as well--just bigger.
    
13. Old Colonial Buildings. The heart of the city is 450 years old and the architecture reflects it. My favorite part are the pigeons that congregate in the plazas.
14. People Selling Random Stuff. Toys, keychains, fresh potato chips (which of course you douse in hot sauce and lime), fruit, bubble wands, sticks of gum, magazines, newspapers, popsicles, window washings, you name it...
15. Tile. Many of the sidewalks are paved in tile. On top of concrete, of course.
16. Roundabouts. An attempt to manage the insane traffic. Most of them have very lovely fountains in the middle.
17. Tacos & Abogados. There are taco stands everywhere. Some are permanent restaurants, others are mobile street stands. Most of the restaurants also sell abogados (I'm probably spelling that wrong), which are something like a philly cheese steak--shredded meat, beens, and hot sauce on a hoagie bun. I'm not a big fan of the abogados but Erik likes them.
    
18. Jesus. Of course this is pronounced "Hey-soos". He's everywhere. Every bus has at least one, and there are numerous billboards around town.
19. Farmacias. My favorite is the one with the "Doctor Similar" mascot. No difficulty finding a place to fill your Rx here.
    
20. Delivery Drivers on Mopeds. No matter what the weather, if you order your food to go, it comes via moped. And you should see the "all weather" getup that the driver wears. With the almost daily rain shower, this is much needed.
    

Household: Get Rid Of Ants Without An Exterminator

Household: Get Rid Of Ants Without An Exterminator

The cayanne pepper trails seemed to show an immediate decrease in the ant traffic on the floor en route to the cat food, but was inneffective at keeping the little buggers off the kitchen counter.

Chalk lines on the foundation of the house put an immediate end to the ants sneaking into the bedroom (which was probably bound to be a short lived infestation anyways, since we do not eat in bed!).

Corn meal looks to be an urban legend. While it was amusing to watch the ants delight in carrying off their new found treasure, we didn't see any results.

The winning method was (as some readers suggested) boric acid. We mixed it with maple flavor syrup an filled small containers throughout the house. At first we were discouraged--it was certainly attractive to the ants but did not stop them from entering the house. And then one day, just like that, they were gone. Apparently it takes a couple of weeks to take effect.

What We Say Without Words - washingtonpost.com

What We Say Without Words - washingtonpost.com

This was a very interesting article...something to keep in mind in business!

How to get rid of Sugar Ants

We've come across our first true pest at our new home...Sugar Ants.

These pesky little guys have invaded our home and we've found little crews of them working all about the house. I feel sick just thinking about using chemicals in my house, so Erik and I set out to find a natural way to get rid of them without the use of RAID or some other icky pesticides.

We found four potential solutions:

1. Try a natural repellent such as ground or powdered chili, or used coffee grounds. Citrus peel (ground) works well too. They hate the smell of vinegar; make a solution with water to spray around.
2. For a more permanent solution, find the ant mound, and destroy it using boiling water.
3. If you can't bear to kill them, at the start of summer leave a jar of honey up a tree in the garden. The ants will be happy to stay out of your kitchen.
4. Feed them corn meal. They eat it. They take it back to their nest and feast on it. They can't digest it and it kills them. Also, corn meal won't harm children or pets.

We're trying methods 1 & 4. I've got long lines of chili powder running along the seems underneath my counters, and little piles of corn meal scattered around the house and yard. Both seem to be working. Only the true troopers are willing to cross the chili line to get to Mrs. Beasley's food, and I think it's safe to say that the corn meal is a hit.

And if none of these solutions work, our next project will be to cause an all out ant war:

Collect a large number of ants from one ant hill (easy to do just leave some food in a container, return after 2 hours and you should have heaps). Drop all the ants in the container onto another ant hill and the ants will start fighting each other resulting in many casualties.

If you would like to see some real ant action, check out this YouTube clip.

The Buffalo Grass Is In!!

Yes, we've only been talking about the buffalo grass for about 18 months...and it's finally in! Tonight Erik completed the planting of all 1800 plugs of Prestige Buffalo Grass.

We have been obsessing about this project since before we found the house ("we" being mostly Erik), and are so happy that we are finally free of spring freezes so that we can get these little suckers growing.

We planted the plugs an average of about 8 inches apart, and expect that by end of summer they will fill in to create a nice, no-mow, no water turf grass. Unfortunately right now, they are terribly unimpressive so I am not bothering to post a photo--all of my attempts to capture the newness of the grass were unsucessful and my photos just looked like mounds of dirt--so instead I am posting a photo from the distributer's web site.

I was very skeptical about this project at first, but I'm very excited for it now. As pathetic as these little grasslings look, it is inspiring to see something actually growing in our yard. And they looked so nice in the trays when they were all grouped together...I put them all next to each other and pretended it was sod so I could see how it looks. I think our grass is going to be just as nice as the neighbors, and can't wait for them to envy us because we don't have to mow the lawn every Saturday morning.

The water bills will be nice too. My mom keeps warning me that the City of Thornton has high water prices in the summer, but after this new lawn is established, we should be able to get through the summer with only a slight increase in our water needs. We've even contacted the city to brag about our water conservation efforts, and they offered to run a feature on our yard!

How To Open A Jar

As anyone who knows me can attest, there are few things in life that I love so much as a nice snack of chips & salsa. Headed home tonight in a foul mood, I stopped by the store for a little pick me up and decided to try a new brand. I got two jars, each different flavors. I headed home and promptly sat myself down for a snack, only to find the lids on not one but both jars hopelessly stuck.

I found this video on YouTube that pretty much explains how I was feeling:



As I entered "Phase 9", I decided to do some more research and found a very helpful post on YahooAnswers. Here is the best response I found, with a little addition from me:

Tap it. Use a knife or the edge of a counter to knock little notches
in the rim in two or three places. This seems to loosen the seal and has
worked for me more times than not in my salsa eating life.

Burp it. Take a teaspoon or butter knife, look under the rim of the lid for
the areas that like they have been pressed. Wedge your utensil under there and
push on it, sending the rim outward (like a crowbar). Once you break the seal it
will be easy to open.

Spank it. Hold the jar in your left hand while your right hits the bottom
in an upward motion a couple of times.

Ram it. Turn it upside down on the counter, pick it up and making sure it's
level, bang it down hard. Not too hard, you'll break it. Just hard enough to
break the seal.

Today, the Burp It method won.