The weather is now completely nuts. We made it through August with about 30 inches less rain than normal. They have put out the irrigation pumps along the canals and rivers which are usually used for trying to raise bumper crops in the middle of summer around March and April. <\/p>\n
I just sprayed inside the house with 10% sodium hypochlorite as Yunee is allergic to the various molds that grow around here. Outside I very selectively sprayed Round-Up<TM> in my ongoing efforts to kill off the mulberry tree roots. SAY! Maybe you could ask Johnny for me. How long will the roots of the mulberry continue to sprout shoots after the parent tree has died? How long can this thing go without photosynthesis?
\nBy the way, don’t get glyphosate anywhere near poinsettias. I simply sprayed near it very carefully and it slowly curled up and died over a 1 month period.<\/p>\n
Our garden is slowly … getting weird. I guess this is good. Our general plan is to fill the entire place chock full of tropical foliage, ignoring the fact that as Tarzan hacked his way through the undergrowth, said undergrowth is the ideal habitat for billions of mosquitoes and leeches. I heard a chain saw across the river the other day and went over to check it out. A couple of guys were sort of stealing the decorative trees planted in a now defunct housing project. They were a bit nervous, thinking I might call the village headman. Instead I chatted it up then talked them into digging me up four lovely baby trees and planting them in our yard. They have thick glossy dark leaves like a magnolia but are about a foot long. The guys wanted 200 baht for the job but they discovered that the trees root balls were massive and even as babies they weighed a ton. So I paid them 500.<\/p>\n
Baby is presently getting the engine kill cable replaced. It broke and forced me to open the engine and move the level manually, or try killing it by putting my hand over the air intake and risk getting sucked in.<\/p>\n
Yunee is very weird. She casually picks up a gigantic wolf or huntsman spider but goes berserk upon seeing a caterpillar or leech.
\nOut in the jeep we were showing a couple of tourists from America the local sights of Chiang Mai. As I drove down a highway Yunee mentioned it being a large one. She has a penchant for non-sequitur speech and leaving out details. As I asked, one of the ladies in the back did the typical to wit, “EEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWW!!!!” while the other gave an “EEEP” noise. Coming in from on the roof was a pretty hefty sparrassid (Huntsman spider). I was a tad busy trying to survive heavy traffic and over the inanity I asked if it had only six legs. We had a maimed visitor in our car port the past few nights and I was curious.<\/p>\n
Yunee confirmed it was the extremity challenged one in question and began giving me a commentary as to it’s perambulations around the jeep with an ongoing background noise from the arachnophobes in back. It wandered about aimlessly for a bit before stopping on the front roll cage bar and appeared to be staring out the front window. I often wonder what spider vision is like. What could this fellow be looking at? What of the passing scenery was being handed to it’s brain?<\/p>\n
It began wandering again, this time over to my side of the jeep. It wandered along some bracing to the main roll bar, came down the shoulder belt and perched on the head rest. From the sounds they were making the gals in back seemed to be giving serious thought to jumping out of a car going nearly 50 miles an hour rather than remain in the company of this terribly deadly vip… err, spider.<\/p>\n
It then moved on down to perch on my right shoulder. The freak out from behind was predictable while Yunee started cracking up laughing. She informed the ladies that it won’t poop much. I caught on and got to laughing as well. Only two days earlier I had hosted a friends cockatoo on that shoulder and was loaded up with enough manure to start a sizable vegetable patch.<\/p>\n
Not liking all my arm moving the pidey headed back up to the roll cage. It wandered about for a few more minutes just to make sure it had extracted the full freak out from the rear then went out and down the side of the jeep. Yunee was a bit freaked about that. It was in danger of getting blown off yet she knew if she tried to cajole it back into the jeep it would probably jump off. It eventually crawled under the jeep and vanished. At our next stop our guests seriously considered doing the same. Vanishing that is.<\/p>\n