Snake 3 and Pest Removal

Okay, clearly, the wildlife in our yard is plotting to kill us.

Monday evening, The Husband was sitting in the living room, watching tv, when he saw something move outside the window.  Upon closer inspection, he found this:

The very idea, peering in our windows like that.  (Actually, it was probably aiming for the bird nest in the box on the window.)

The Husband went all samurai warrior on it.

The next day, I went to the garden center and bought TWO giant bottles of Snake Stopper. 

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I have been on a mission to make enough compost to make a difference in the garden.  Earlier in the week, I was dumping table scraps into the compost barrel and got stung by a wasp (or something).  Whatever it was, it was badass.  My hand swelled up until it looked pretty much like a blown-up latex glove.  And ITCH....  Mercy.

I went out to the barrel yesterday afternoon armed with a can of wasp spray - the kind that jets about 20 feet.  A sassafras sapling has come up through the frame, impairing access to that side of the frame, but I could get to the other side, so I filled it up with wasp foam, then ran my butt back into the house before a wasp could get me.  The Husband worked on it again tonight and thinks he found where they were hiding, and he thinks he got them.  I'm going to go out there tomorrow and dose it again for good measure.

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Yesterday I went to the garden to pick squash and noticed that the tomato plants are firing up with blight.  I know that the best remedy for blight is to prevent it by spraying a fungicide before the blight takes hold.  But, dang it, it has rained and rained and rained here, and anything I sprayed would have washed right off.  And now it's about 100 degrees, and as humid as a swamp.  Heat + moisture = blight. 

To frost the cake, I found aphids on some of the tomatoes AND on the purple hull peas. 

I went to the garden shed for the chemicals.  I don't like chemicals, and so I try to use as them as little as possible.  But at this point it's either use them or lose the plants. 

Don't think I wasn't tempted by the latter option. 

Nevertheless, I got out the sprayer, mixed up the foul stuff, and started to spray.  I got a few seconds of good, fine mist, then the nozzle started to sputter and dribble.  I tried to work on it, wound up getting a fungicide/pesticide bath, but not a better spray.  Nanny went to the shop and got out a brand new sprayer - brand new in the sense that it had never been used, but it had been sitting in a box in the hot shop for about 5 years - but it wouldn't hold air around the pumper, wouldn't not build up pressure, and would not spray.  I tried swapping nozzles and hoses.  Nothing worked.  I put it all back in the shed, went BACK to the garden center today, and bought another sprayer.  It worked for about 2 minutes before it started spewing 3 streams instead of a spray.

Why do these things never work right? 

Would the world beat a path to my door if I built a better sprayer nozzle?

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While I was in the garden tonight, The Husband sprinkled the snake repellent all around the house and along the edge of the woods.  He said he left an "exit hole" where he didn't sprinkle it, so that any snake that might be in the yard can GET THE HELL OUT.  Tomorrow, we'll close the gap.  I think it's supposed to rain again this weekend, so we'll probably have to do it again when the rain goes away.  It makes our yard smell like a giant Red Hot candy.  Kind of pleasant, actually!