Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Moth Balls, Dryer Sheets and Knee High Nylons

OK, the title of this post might seem little bizarre and certainly these things must be unrelated but all three were utilized at our house this summer to defeat a common backyard pest. Did you know we have a pear tree in our backyard? Did you know pears are Dan's favorite fruit? Last summer, the squirrels STOLE all the pears from our tree!! This year we decided to take matters into our own hands, starting with the above referenced tools. I read online that squirrels don't like the smell of moth balls and the website suggested suspending a healthy supply from several branches in knee high nylons. So, we tried that, it worked fairly well. Then we heard that dryer sheets have the same effect and they smell a lot better than moth balls. So, we tried that. Eventually we bought a BB gun. That at least allowed Dan to harvest enough pears to make some jelly. Hence the photo above. The pear jelly is in the center. The peach jelly (No, we don't have a peach tree in our backyard) is on the right and the peach/rum jelly is on the left.

Once Domestic Super Hero Dan got started on the pear jelly, he decided to make peach too. So he bought a lug of peaches from Craigslist and got started. Do you know how much a lug of peaches weighs? That's a lot of blanching and peeling. Yikes!

My mom canned vegetables and made jelly when I was younger and my sister, Adriene, does it now. It does call for some special tools - none of which we owned. But DSH Dan was undeterred. He adapted and made one of the tools himself. See his cool tool below.



He adapted a funnel we already had to make a W-I-D-E mouth funnel…would you have thought of that? The peach and pear jelly recipes came from my sister. The peach/rum jelly came from Receipezaar (my favorite recipe website) and you can find it here. Or, you can figure out a way to become DSH Dan's new best friend.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Big excitement in our neighborhood!



This out in front of the elementary school across the street from our house.