Bug Out!!

It's a cold, rainy Sunday.  Time to get a few chores done around the house after being on the road all week. Barkley was happy with a friend taking care of him at home, but living out of a suitcase most of the summer showed in the cobwebs and dust bisons in other areas of the Range.

But there were more pressing things  than dusting and vacuuming that came to mind. Saturday night.  As I was quietly sipping some 16 year old Glenlivit and watching Dr. Who, the smell of skunk become suddenly obvious. Barkley was barking like mad but I knew better than to let him out. The smell was from the front of the house, under the porch.  Looks like Mr. Skunk has found a nice place to hang his hat.

Now there are ways to deal with critters that take up residence under the porch, including. but not limited to, the Redneck Range Critter Round Up Package.

But a skunk, being striker fired, needs a little more stealthy plan. The east end of the basement lays against the back of the porch. so today, a a really loud radio will play there to convince Mr. Skunk he out to sleep elsewhere during the day. Let's see if I can find a station with Polka Music or Justin Beiber. If that doesn't work, there's always CNN.

Til then, It's going to take time to get the smell out of the walk-out basement.  Time for some cross ventilation

 

But in getting the fan, I found that the skunk was the least of my worries.   There was a large assortment of spiders that took advantage of the absence of traffic and set up shop, in the shop.

I don't like to harm the  household ones that eat insects, carefully moving the Daddy Long Legs and such out of the house back into the garden.  But the large nasty ones that like the shop, one of which is the size of a Volkswagen beatle, as well as the risk of Brown Recluses, calls for different tactics. 

I think I'm ready - -

SPIDER BATTLE BRIEFING GUIDE

1. Sanitize flight suit and personal possessions - Check

2. Intelligence - Not much if I'm chasing large spiders with herbal hippie oil

(a). Threats - There's mud, there's nails, there's cobwebs all over the place.

3. SAR procedures - Swatter 11 is ready!

4. Interphone and Radio discipline - No live twitter of jumping spiders
5. Threat Calls - Break Left!  Bogie 1 o'clock! Just seems to be hanging there!

6. Wounded crewmember procedures - Bactine!  Check!

7. Low-level emergencies -  Holy (*#@ one just ran out from under the TR6

8. Battle damage reporting and procedures -  Maybe the broom and the ladder wasn't the best idea
9. Use of lights - The Roar of the Pelican may be small but it doesn't have a 250 knot speed restriction

10. Emergency load jettison procedures - Frankly if one of those wolf spiders jumps on me, there will be a load jettisoned and not in a good way.

11. Bailout procedures  -RUN AWAY!  RUN AWAY!

12. Crash landing/ditching procedures and egress - Everyone to the beer cooler!

13. Ground evacuation  -  see above

14. Use of equipment: parachutes, LPU’s, survival vests, body armor - I have rum,  matches and a large roll of paper towels

15. Altered/non-standard procedures: Slowdown, Random approaches, Escape -

"Tam?  Want to come over for dinner? There's Brisket. 
No, no special reason.  Oh, and bring a flame thrower".

16. Chemical environment -  Why does my shop smell like a Shamrock Shake now?