Miss H. And Me

There's nothing like company to open your eyes.  Before the fellas came up on Saturday, I was pretty pleased with my housekeeping accomplishments that morning, thinking that at least I wouldn't embarrass my son.  Yeah, well.  On do-nothing Sunday, I was looking at the swept and polished living room and noticed a big cobweb at the ceiling across the room.  Oh, good grief.  I hoped the guys were either too busy or too tired to look up.

Yesterday I dug the Webster, a tool specifically for cobwebs, out of the closet and went after that web.  I found that Miss Haversham ("Great Expectations," Charles Dickens, 1861) and I have a lot in common.  She was a recluse whose old mansion was festooned with cobwebs everywhere.  I discovered that it wasn't just that one web in my house.  It seems it isn't enough to just sweep the floors, and I went from room to room swiping down the bug catchers.  The Webster really got a workout.

Inside the house is one thing, outside is quite another.  I mentioned quite some time ago that I used to buy and hang fly strips in the barn until I realized that, if I quit sweeping down the cobwebs in there, I had a bounty of fly catchers in all rooms and for free.  I'm not a person who is afraid of spiders, so it was no big deal.  Out on the deck by the doors, there are webs big enough to trap a bat and I leave 'em.  The proof of their efficiency is in the multitude of caught insects, bugs that otherwise would probably have come in the house.  They may not be attractive, but I appreciate the help.  Miss Haversham would approve.

There were no barking dogs last evening and bedtime was easy peasy.  The girls went inside in a quick and orderly fashion, even Tessie.  Whew.