The swarmed into our side of the mountain and what a mess. They seem to find their way into the house no matter what you do. By swarm I mean millions and millions of em. When I go out to the barn to do some wood work, it's like walking on a carpet of dead ladybugs. They literally cover the floor. We had the house sprayed inside, which helped some but they just keep coming back. As it warms up they're supposed to swarm again but this time going away. Don't really care where they go so long as they go. But - apparently they'll be back. Seems they mark their territory so they know where to come back to and boy did they mark this area. This is another example of man messing with nature. These critters were apparently brought in in massive numbers to control some other critter. Only now there's nothing to control the controller. Anytime we mess with "Mother Nature" we never get it right. I thought we could get the outside of the house sprayed to get rid of them but - nope. The spray tends to wash off during heavy rains and if it's sprayed on heavy enough to stay - you're breaking the law. It's a no win situation. Nothing like sitting down to enjoy a nice bowl of chilly on a winters day only to have a couple of ladybugs fall into the soup. I've gotten to where I just scoop them out and continue as if nothing had happened. Who ya gonna call!!!!
One good thing about being cooped up is I get to make quite a bit of headway on my family tree. I'm not sure how many names I've gotten so far but it's over 900. I found a couple of books on the Internet that had a lot of my family history going back to England. Then all I had to do was confirm their information by searching online databases like census, birth, death, and marriage records as well as passenger ship manifests. Also have Cathy's mother's side going back to the 1500's. It's really exciting to uncover some of the history and then sometimes its not so exciting. I just found out that on my father's side, we had ancestors who were pioneers into Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama before they were states. Unfortunately, in the late 1700 - early 1800 era, they used slaves on large land holdings or plantations. Several of these pioneers were slave owners. Nothing to be proud of but it's part of the history. Also had another of my ancestors who was basically shanghaied at 14 years of age and was forced to be a cabin boy on a sailing ship that took to pirating off the coast of Africa in the south Atlantic and Indian ocean areas. Luckily he and a couple other young sailors made a break for it when the ship pulled into the Bahamas. The story actually comes from a deposition made on May 28, 1698 by John Elston to a court in New Jersey when he was 20 years old. It was found during research of New Jersey Colonial Documents. Interesting stuff and a good way to occupy oneself during self-imposed winter incarceration. Til Next time - ta ta
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