I wanted to share some of the brilliant colors I captured on my walk today, Halloween, the 31st of October.
A golden maple beckons at the end of the driveway (Photo by Nancy Marie Allen)
With November nearly upon us, the foliage colors are slowly changing to soft golds and russets but there are still many bright reds to be found.
Late October Vignette of Burning Bush, Sedum and Grasses (Photo by Nancy Marie Allen)
Although the plants above were intentionally placed together, there are many scenes in the natural landscape where colors also complement each other as if by design.
Golds, Reds, and Greens of Late October (Photo by Nancy Marie Allen)
Pumpkins along an old New England stone wall will thrill early Trick or Treaters with their bright orange pops of color.
Bright pumpkins celebrate the season (Photo by Nancy Marie Allen)
Color is everywhere right now; one just has to take the time to enjoy it.
Happy Halloween, Everyone!
A Japanese Maple punctuates the landscape with brilliant red (Photo by Nancy Marie Allen)
Trees and Tall Grasses frame a Shimmering Sculpture (Photo by Nancy Marie Allen)
A MOTHER AND DAUGHTER ROAD TRIP
This past Columbus Day weekend I had the pleasure of visiting one of these hidden gems, the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay. Checking out the brilliant fall foliage along the way, my daughter and I took a road trip from Massachusetts, hoping to catch the botanical gardens while still in full autumn glory. We were not disappointed!
Succulents in Pots with Hydrangea Background (Photo by Nancy Marie Allen)
A LITTLE HISTORY
According to the CMBG website: “This ambitious project began in 1991 when a group of mid-coast Maine residents founded the grassroots organization. They, and those who worked with them and came after them, shared the belief that northern New England in general, and Maine in particular, were in need of a botanical garden.” “In 1996, after a thorough search for an appropriate site, Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens purchased 128 acres of land with 3,600 feet of tidal shore frontage in Boothbay. This was possible due to the unhesitating willingness of founders to use their own homes as collateral.” After 16 years of putting it all together, the gardens officially opened in June of 2007. Today, the site is comprised of 295 acres including tidal shoreland and offering breathtaking views of the coast and woods of Maine.
View of the Water from the Fairy House Village (Photo by Nancy Marie Allen)
GARDENS WITHIN GARDENS
There are many gardens to visit here including the Vayo Meditation Garden, the Lerner Garden of the Five Senses and the Bibby and Harold Alfond Children’s Garden. There is also a Fairy House Village and a Native Butterfly House to delight children of all ages. Stately Maine pines, oaks, and maples provide a dramatic natural backdrop to the many shrubs, perennials, groundcovers, and annuals planted throughout.
Close-up of Verbena Bonariensis (Photo by Julie Wilkins)
TAKING IT ALL IN
Although many summer flowers had already gone to seed, the varied types of seedheads only added more texture and drama to the spectacular floral vignettes. Some late blooming daisies were just beginning to open their buds while many hydrangeas still sported colorful blue and pink mopheads. Asters, sedum and even some shrub roses were still in flower. The popular annual, verbena bonariensis, planted throughout many areas, provided a lovely purple contrast to the many oranges, yellows, and reds of marigolds, nasturtiums, and sunflowers. In celebration of the season, the entire area was also decorated with gourds and pumpkins of all colors, sizes, and shapes.
One of many Seasonal Displays (Photo by Nancy Marie Allen)
COME AGAIN
Since we arrived mid-afternoon our time was limited to a couple of hours of walking, but you can easily spend a leisurely day here, taking a lunch break at the Kitchen Garden Cafe which features produce from local growers as well as their own fresh vegetables and herbs. We will definitely be back to enjoy another day and another season in this extraordinary place!
Mexican Sunflower and Purple Fountain Grass (Photo by Nancy Marie Allen)
Meeting up with old friends warms my heart like few other things in this life. It’s a shared embrace going back many years, a bond of common experience that runs deep. We know each other’s stories well because we’ve been through so much together.
THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD
Those of you who know me also know that I worked for the same physician for 32 years. During that time I grew to love many of the people who shared our medical practice and office building. When you see the same people every day, sharing your “Good Morning’s” and “See ya tomorrow’s,” week after week, year after year, those same people become not only part of your daily routine but part of your life story as well.
In the span of those years, I witnessed all of the important markers in these people’s lives and those of their families – the marriages, births, graduations, weddings, illness, and loss. I went through many life changes myself, all of them shared within this group and all made easier by their constancy and support.
Photo from Ganda-Ganda.com
THE SAFE HARBOR
There is something that friends and co-workers provide that family doesn’t. While we rely on family members to comfort us in hard times, they are also overwhelmed by our shared pain. Within the workplace, people empathize with your pain but aren’t part of it themselves. They provide that all-important pat on the back that keeps us going; they provide that safe harbor. Being part of a long-term workplace group where the surroundings and people are familiar and constant creates a sense of security which buoys our ability to cope. We still suffer through the changes alone but feel comforted and protected by the group at the same time. The busyness of the office space and the need to keep working in spite of our problems provides a cushion of sorts against our personal pain and helps us get through whatever it is without being weighed down by it.
When I first began working, the office world was a very different place. Our phones were rotary dial and the typewriters were electric clunkers. There was no state of the art Keurig machine, only slow-brew Mr. Coffee. Medical claims forms, now spewed out electronically at lightning speed, were typed individually and then mailed. Even more amazing, there were no computers and no Google, but somehow we managed to figure things out and run an efficient and thriving medical practice. We adopted the new technologies only when forced to because we didn’t see any reason to change what already worked so well.
STILL CARING AND SHARING
It’s been almost a year now since we closed our medical office. Although we no longer work together – some of us have retired, others have gone on to other jobs – we manage to stay in touch and get together for a group lunch occasionally. We often laugh about the old days when we were surrounded by antique office equipment and the irony that now WE are the antiques! It’s all good, though, because we still have that precious bond of working, crying and laughing together for so many years. Thanks for the memories, old friends. It’s been an honor to have you all in my life!
Photo by Nancy Marie Allen
DISCLOSURE: From time to time I may use Affiliate Links such as the ones below. I use these only for companies I trust. When you click through on the link and make a purchase from the website, I may make a small commission (at no additional cost to you) which helps me to maintain my website.
Chicken soup has been around for centuries and for good reason; it’s a classic comfort food which spans many cultures and which almost everyone loves. While some people claim chicken soup has medicinal qualities, and it’s been used to treat all manner of illnesses, I believe that any soup made with love warms our hearts and makes us feel better! Below is a basic recipe for making your own chicken soup. Since I usually cook for just two these days, this will yield a small but delicious batch of about four servings.
After roasting a small (approx 4 1/2 lb) chicken and enjoying that as a meal, clean off all the leftover chicken meat and reserve for later. Separately put aside the carcass, skin, bones, and whatever savory browned liquid was left in the roasting pan. This is the stuff you will use to make chicken stock which you can then freeze to use in any number of dishes or, as I’m doing today, turn it into delicious chicken soup.
Making basic chicken stock is fast, easy, and SO much better than whatever you can buy in the grocery store. If I want soup for dinner, I make the stock in the morning; it’s the all-important aromatic and flavorful soup base. From the small roast chicken, I toss all the leftover chicken bones, carcass, skin and roasting pan gleanings into a large stockpot and add about six cups of water. Then I add a couple of stalks of celery, a carrot, some onion, 2 garlic cloves and a small bunch of fresh herbs such as parsley, thyme, and sage. Amounts vary depending upon what I have on hand, but you get the idea. I then add a teaspoon of sea salt and some ground black pepper, bring everything to a boil, turn the heat down low and simmer for a couple of hours.
Simmering Chicken Stock (Photo by Nancy Marie Allen)
COOL IT
After turning off the heat, I let the stock sit for a while to cool down enough so I can handle it safely. At that point, I strain the whole mess into a large bowl and allow it to sit and cool some more, placing it in the fridge if there’s room. The cooling causes a layer of fat to form on the top which I remove with a large spoon and use to saute the vegetables for the soup.
After rinsing and wiping out the same stockpot to remove any debris, I can now add the chicken fat, a medium chopped onion, a couple of chopped carrots, a couple of chopped celery stalks, and some thinly sliced garlic cloves. Sprinkle the veggies with a little sea salt and saute over medium heat for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the stock, bring it all back to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer again for about 25 minutes. Add two cups of the reserved chicken meat, bring back to a boil, turn down the heat and gently simmer for an additional 20 minutes. While the soup is simmering, separately cook some noodles, broken spaghetti, small macaroni, or orzo which will thicken the broth and add some creaminess. I use about a cup of dry pasta for this recipe and cook “al dente” since the pasta will continue to cook in the hot soup. Once that’s done, stir in the drained pasta last. The more pasta and chicken used, the thicker the soup will be. Add some fresh chopped herbs now if you’d like.
SERVE AND ENJOY!
Taste and add more salt and pepper if desired. Keep warm until ready to serve or let the whole soup cool and refrigerate for another day – the flavor will actually improve if you let it sit for 24 hours. Serve with grated Parmesan cheese. Italian parsley add a nice garnish!
Homemade Chicken Soup (Photo by Nancy Marie Allen)
“M’M M’M GOOD”
You now have homemade chicken soup ready to enjoy, the perfect warming meal for a cold, raw day.
DISCLOSURE: From time to time I may use Affiliate Links such as the ones below. I use these only for companies I trust. When you click through on the link and make a purchase from the website, I may make a small commission (at no additional cost to you) which helps me to maintain my website.
I adore fall – the brilliant colors, golden days and cool nights; the bounty of farmstand apples, pears, and pumpkins; the delectable aromas of a country fair! The sweet scent of woodsmoke becomes familiar again as people in the neighborhood light the first fires of the season. Fall has its own smell, too, rich and earthy, as wet fallen leaves pile up and plants slowly melt back into the soil from where they emerged just a few short months ago. Hickory nuts abound, closely followed by acorns and pinecones. Soon, pine needles will blanket the edges of the road and feel soft under our feet as we walk. There is so much about the season that delights our senses!
For many fall is a season of beginnings – the kids go back to school, young people move to new apartments, others join classes or committees. The cooler days seem to create a sense of urgency to get involved and get things settled. The holiday season begins as we celebrate Thanksgiving and look forward to Christmas, making those last few weeks the busiest of the year. But fall is also a time of sadness as the year turns toward winter and our lives move indoors. It’s a time for reflection over the past year’s accomplishments as well as a time to look ahead.
Turning the corner from summer to fall can be a difficult transition. Longer nights close in and the refreshing coolness of September days turns seriously cold by November. In spring, as the days lengthen and temperatures warm, we feel exhilarated as life re-emerges from the cold depths of winter. We look forward to the sun-filled days ahead; it’s a change we’ve longed for. But fall signals the loss of light and warmth, as the days turn darker and colder, moving in the opposite direction toward the end of the year. I’m grateful that it’s a slow and gradual process because, for those of us who love the warmth of the sun, it can be downright depressing.
Many of us acutely miss the loss of light and become sluggish with the cloudy and wet days of fall. We may feel like eating more and/or sleeping more; we may lack motivation. Those mild sunny days, taken for granted in summer, now become rare and precious! Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is something many people experience this time of year, an unpleasant side effect of shorter days and less sunlight. We have no choice but to endure the discomfort and commiserate with friends and family over our common predicament!
More than any other season, fall is a time of preparation. Just like the squirrels stowing away nuts for the months ahead, we humans tend to our own rituals. Many of us put garden produce by for the winter months, our homegrown tomatoes and green beans even more welcome come January. We begin to cook comfort foods of soups and stews which warm our homes as well as our bodies. We bake apple crisps and pumpkin pies, savoring the warming spices of cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. We stock up on wood for the fireplace or stove, fill our oil tanks and “hunker down” for the colder months ahead.
Fall is the season when we begin to turn inward, mourning the end of another year and yet taking comfort in the knowledge that we’re all part of the infinite circle of life.
DISCLOSURE: From time to time I may use Affiliate Links such as the ones below. I use these only for companies I trust. When you click through on the link and make a purchase from the website, I may make a small commission (at no additional cost to you) which helps me to maintain my website.
A good rain is such a blessing! After weeks of hot, dry weather, we finally had some beneficial rain here in northeastern Massachusetts. Heavy tropical downpours moved across our region today, a gift from hurricane Florence as the storm slowly moved east and out to sea. Of course, those living down South who have just experienced 20 inches of rain are not feeling at all blessed right now, but I’m not talking about the kind of rain that leaves flooding and devastation in its wake. Instead, I’m feeling grateful for the kind of rain that sets everything right again, washing away summer’s dust and leaving the outside world clean and refreshed. If you take a close look at your trees, shrubs, and perennials after a soaking rain, you’ll see that they’re greener looking, perky and plumped up with moisture. Some plants, like rhododendrons, even lift up their leaves, as if in thanks!
A Rhododendron Giving Thanks for Rain (Photo by Nancy Marie Allen)
This is the first September since I retired and I’ve taken the opportunity to do some major garden renovation of long-neglected areas. This includes dividing and moving perennials to areas where they can spread out. After digging a new hole for a plant, I add homemade compost and mix it in, ensuring a good start for the roots and improving the existing soil. In addition, and just as important, I plan any large-scale gardening work so that it’s done before a predicted good rainfall. Once the plants are settled into their new homes, I wait for that beneficial rain to work its magic because it’s true that the best water for plants is au natural!
My husband and I are fortunate to live in a small town where everyone has well water. Although our water contains mineral salts, we don’t use a water softener and there’s no chlorine or fluoride which are commonly found in municipal drinking water. Many plants are susceptible to chlorine toxicity which can cause scorched or “burnt” leaves and affect overall health. It can also build up in the soil when gardens are watered regularly with chlorinated water. In addition, according to J.W. Pscheidt, Extension Plant Pathology Specialist, Oregon State University, “Fluoride is an accumulative poison in plant foliage. Accumulation may be gradual over time. Fluoride strongly inhibits photosynthesis and other processes.” Additionally, the heavy use of chemical fertilizers can also burn plants.
Even though our property has well water which is free of added chemicals, I water as little as possible from the outside spigot, preferring to wait for rainfall. Although we don’t have a rain collection barrel, we do put out buckets to collect rain which I then use to water my flower pots and anything newly planted. In addition, I use a layer of mulch every spring to conserve the moisture in my garden beds and any fertilizer I use is organic-based. Using this regimen, I’ve noted an improvement in the overall health of my plants and gardens and I’ve saved myself a lot of outdoor watering!
Using Collected Rainwater in Outdoor Pots (Photo by Torsten Dettlaff on Pexels.com)
Here are some tips for healthy watering practices:
If you have city water and love to garden, try watering outside only when absolutely necessary to minimize chemical build-up.
Collect rainwater in barrels or buckets and use that on thirsty plants.
If rainwater isn’t available, let tap water sit in your watering can for 24 hours before using to water houseplants or outside pots, thus allowing the chlorine and fluoride to settle out.
Plant outside before a predicted rainfall to help your plants get quickly established.
Rain on Hosta Leaves (Photo by Hilary Halliwell on Pexels.com)
For more on the many benefits of rainwater, click on this link:
DISCLOSURE: From time to time I may use Affiliate Links such as the ones below. I use these only for companies I trust. When you click through on the link and make a purchase from the website, I may make a small commission (at no additional cost to you) which helps me to maintain my website.
It’s now mid-August, a time in the vegetable garden when everything is really BIG and I have to step carefully between towering tomato plants, giant zucchini and a teepee covered with dangling pole beans. Grandpa Ott morning glories climb every available structure with blooms of deep purple velvet. Yellow marigolds add a touch of sunshine while sprawling “Milk Maid” nasturtiums soften the garden edges. Every day there are more vegetables to pick, the bounty coming in faster and faster.
In a couple of weeks I’ll be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of fresh produce pouring into my kitchen, but right now I’m savoring every delicious bite! It’s a bittersweet time when all our gardening labors come to fruition just as autumn lies in wait to end it all too soon. However, in spite of our short growing season, we can carry some of our harvest into the coming months and enjoy our homegrown veggies and fruits all winter.
Garden produce can be pickled, frozen, dried or canned. There’s nothing like opening a jar of homegrown tomatoes in January and experiencing the flavor of summer all over again. Small cherry tomatoes dry well and the “chips” can be added to winter stews and soups. The drying process actually concentrates the sweet flavor! Fruits and berries can also be preserved this way, or how about homemade jam? Peas, corn and green beans can be easily blanched and frozen. Many vegetables such as carrots, beets, potatoes and winter squash can be simply stored in a consistently cold room. Not too long ago most homes had a “root cellar” just for this purpose.
Putting food by, or preserving it for the future, is something that we should teach every school age child. Once a part of everyday life, our ancestors had to insure there was food put away for the lean times or perish. Today we’ve become so dependent on our huge grocery stores that we’ve lost touch with how food should be grown, prepared and stored. If you already garden, food preservation is simply the next step. By taking the time to do so we extend our gardening season well into the winter months AND get to enjoy our own produce that was picked at the peak of perfection and taste!
Before you run down to the local hardware store and purchase a box of Ball canning jars, get a good handbook on the subject to make sure you’re preserving food safely and correctly. I’ve included a few links below to help get you started and encourage you to try the art of putting food by!
DISCLOSURE: From time to time I may use Affiliate Links such as the ones below. I use these only for companies I trust. When you click through on the link and make a purchase from the website, I may make a small commission (at no additional cost to you) which helps me to maintain my website.
“Are you in the Blogosphere?” my husband calls from another room. As much as I would like to give a resounding “Yes!” to that question, it’s not always the case. More often than not, I’m lost on Twitter or Facebook or “just browsing” the internet, ever searching for inspiration. When I do blog, however, it’s a source of great enjoyment for me because it’s something I can do whenever I like from the comfort of my home. It’s also something I can do with Lyme disease.
Blogging takes a lot of time, research and work but it also requires the blogger to have one very important tool at his or her disposal – energy! – that precious spark of life that keeps us rolling through our days. For people with chronic Lyme disease, that spark can sometimes be hard to resurrect. It gets buried under the aches, pains and profound fatigue that are a constant when living with Lyme. There are days when I just have to rest and nothing else is going to happen, but even on those off days, I still find myself thinking about blogging and what I’ll be writing about next. Blogging inspires me to keep moving forward in spite of my problems.
Because blogging (and writing in general) can be picked up and put down at any time, it’s the perfect career for people like myself who can’t depend on feeling well every day and for whom the typical 9 to 5 situation is just not going to happen. It’s also a great pastime for retired folks who have so much life experience to share. It can be a form of mentoring where others can turn to our blogs for help with their own issues of daily living. We learn through the practice of blogging and by reading other people’s blogs – they’re a wonderful resource!
When I first thought about blogging earlier this year, I had no idea where to begin. I knew that I enjoyed writing and wanted a platform where my writing could be seen but making that happen was more than a little daunting for this old gal who was not particularly computer savvy. The good news is that by consulting other bloggers, I got all the information I needed to start. By chance I happened upon Amy Lynn Andrews, an amazing woman and veteran blogger, who shares all her hard-won information on her website. I was astounded by how easy her step-by-step tutorials were to follow and in a very short period of time I was up and running with my own blog. It was a confidence-building turning point for me!
Today, I regularly check out other bloggers and have found many writers with Lyme disease and other chronic illnesses. Like me, blogging has given them a new lease on life. It’s a place where we can share our stories, encourage each other and provide inspiration to keep going through whatever life throws at us. So here I go once again, into the Blogosphere!
Recently my husband and I have been watching the 10-part series, The Vietnam War, written by Geoffrey C. Ward and directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. Although we’ve enjoyed it immensely from a historical point of view, this series is not for the faint of heart. There’s a lot of raw, powerful imagery as well as many interviews of people who fought on all sides of the war. In spite of the intensity of the material used in the making of the series, I still highly recommend it.
Watching The Vietnam War got me thinking about the 1960’s in general and how those years affected me as a young girl. If you ask a Baby Boomer to describe the 60’s, chances are they will talk about the amazing music, free love and drugs that permeated our culture during this time. We like to think about the 60’s with nostalgia, gingerly skipping over the bad parts, because the darkness of the Vietnam years is still too painful to remember.
When John F. Kennedy took office in January of 1961 I was 7 years old. It was a golden time in America then and the Kennedy years in the White House were often referred to as “Camelot.” We adored the dashing new President and his charming First Lady; we loved their children, Caroline and John-John. The horrors of World War II were far enough behind us and Vietnam was not yet a household word. The future of our country looked so bright with the Kennedy’s at the helm!
Sadly, “Camelot” did not last long. The Kennedy administration had many serious issues to deal with such as the Cold War, the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Former President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, believed the threat of Communism in Southeast Asia was a top priority, and Kennedy increased the number of American military advisers and special forces in South Vietnam.
On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. I’ll never forget the look on my teacher’s face when she heard the news which came to our 5th grade classroom early that afternoon. We all sat there, incredulous and shocked! When Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as our 36th President later that day, we barely even noticed.
And now the 1960’s turned very dark indeed. Under the Johnson administration, the Vietnam war exploded, consuming us and becoming the beast we all hated and feared. There were nationwide protests, draft card burnings and anti-war songs on the radio. Every night we “watched” film clips of the war on TV and heard the dreaded body counts. And, somehow, when our brave boys started coming home, we began to hate and fear them, too! For many Americans, this was the cruelest aftermath of Vietnam.
When I look back at the 60’s now I see only loss – loss of our innocence, loss of our sons and brothers, loss of our great leaders. On April 4th, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., was shot while standing on a hotel balcony in Memphis. Although rushed to surgery, he died shortly thereafter. On June 5th, Bobby Kennedy was shot in Los Angeles after winning the California presidential primary; he died the following day. My own family had suffered the loss of our father to lung cancer in February of 1967 but it was hard to embrace our very personal grief while the whole country mourned their own terrible losses!
While Richard Nixon took office in January of 1969, it wasn’t until 1973 that the war in Vietnam finally ended, bringing to a close all that defined the preceding decade. And even though 45 years have passed, the darkness of the Vietnam years will always remain with those of us who lived through it.
Photo by Public Domain Photography on Pexels.com
DISCLOSURE: This post contains affiliate links to the companies listed below. When you click through on a link and make a purchase, I may make a small commission at no additional cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank You!
We have to face the fact that we cannot stop the deer, mice, chipmunks, squirrels, and raccoons from bringing disease-carrying ticks into our suburban yards. We can only work to kill the ticks that are already here and try to do so with safety in mind for all living things.
According to the National Pesticide Information Center (NPIC) website, “diatomaceous earth is made from the fossilized remains of tiny, aquatic organisms called diatoms. Their skeletons are made of a natural substance called silica. Over a long period of time, diatoms accumulated in the sediment of rivers, streams, lakes, and oceans. Today, silica deposits are mined from these areas.”
“Diatomaceous earth is not poisonous; it does not have to be eaten in order to be effective. Diatomaceous earth causes insects to dry out and die by absorbing the oils and fats from the cuticle of the insect’s exoskeleton. Its sharp edges are abrasive, speeding up the process.”
How we started using Diatomaceous Earth:
About four years ago my husband sent out an email to friends asking if anyone had suggestions for getting rid of ticks in the yard. One person suggested trying diatomaceous earth (DE) since it had been used successfully in kennels and the “food grade” type was considered safe and non-toxic. This was good news for us since we drank water from a well and were against using chemicals. We immediately did an online search and purchased a 10 lb. bag of what looked like white talcum powder.
At that time we could not go out into our yard without finding deer ticks crawling on us. Both my husband and myself had been bitten many times and I had already been diagnosed with Lyme disease. Although we took every precaution such as wearing light-colored clothing, tucking our pants into socks, using Deet repellents and religiously checking our clothing and bodies after being outdoors, it still wasn’t enough – the ticks were winning every battle!
It was late spring, prime deer tick season in our area of northeastern Massachusetts. Before using the DE outside, my husband decided to try an experiment. Using the “white sheet test,” he dragged a sheet over the grass in our yard to see how many ticks would cling to it, thus getting a tick count. There were 22 ticks in a three hundred square foot area! In addition, he took some of those ticks and placed them into a small container with the diatomaceous earth overnight. In the morning they were lying on their backs with legs up, completely dried out and looking very dead. This was all the encouragement we needed to put the diatomaceous earth to the back yard test!
After checking online for a recipe of sorts, my husband mixed a ratio of about 1 1/2 cups of the DE to one gallon of water in a large watering can. This was then “sprinkled” over the areas in our yard where ticks congregated. It left a fine white powder on the grass, plants and rock walls that surrounded our lawn. After a rain, the powder disappeared but we hoped it would not lose its effectiveness. It turned out we were not to be disappointed. Two weeks later a second “white sheet test” in the same area came back with no ticks attached. Although we were still waging war, we had won our first battle!
The Continuing Saga:
Over the course of the last four years, we’ve applied diatomaceous earth to our yard twice a year, in the spring and fall. We’ve since upgraded to using a sprayer which makes the application faster and easier, but a watering can is fine for small areas. Each spring has brought fewer tick sightings until this spring when, amazingly, we found no ticks at all! Is it the DE or just environmental changes that are affecting the tick population? We can’t say for sure. All we know is that this is the first year in many that we haven’t had to deal with deer ticks and we are very pleased with the results!
What you need to know about using Diatomaceous Earth:
The DiatomaceousEarth.com website suggests purchasing food-grade DE. They state, “Generally, this is the best grade to use. For almost all the uses described in our articles, we recommend using food grade. It’s a multipurpose product that can be used in your home, yard or garden.” They also recommend wearing a dust mask when using the product to avoid inhaling the fine powder and wearing gloves to protect the skin from the drying effects of DE. Visit their website for more information.
DISCLOSURE: This post contains affiliate links to the companies listed below. When you click through on a link and make a purchase, I may make a small commission at no additional cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank You!
You can purchase 2 lb. and 10 lb. bags of food grade Diatomaceous Earth here:
You can also purchase appropriate dust masks here:
