5C's Que Pasa

This is the second time I write this…it was great the first time, not so much this time……dang WordPress error 👿 

Last Wednesday Colin and I had gone up the beach to try out a new restaurant ( post coming ).

On the way back we turned and saw this lovely scene. The horse had been training directly in front of our site.

We are certainly going to miss these spectacles.

As we approached the RV, I noticed some insects flying about.  It did not take long to realize that the termites were back.  The hatching of these termites usually occurs late March to mid April.  Our first four years here were termite free.  But back in 2014 we were swarmed with thousands of them and our RV was a war zone.  It took us hours to gain control.  You can read that story here.  Last year we had a minor invasion as we now knew how to deal with them.  They fly to the light so one has to shut all lights off and of course vents and windows.  Last Wednesday we had left our fairy lights on to guide us home as we walked the beach at dusk.  The screened windows were all open and we had left a light on inside for the girls. We quickly shut everything up and I also ran to advise the other RVers what was happening so that they could protect their RV’s.  It took us over 90 minutes to kill  those horrific insects as they kept popping up here and there.  I didn’t count every one but pretty close to 125 were terminated 😯

They usually pass by quickly if there is no light.  However they do come for 3 to 5 nights in a row.  So we battened down the hatches at dusk last Thursday and a few did go over us.  Nothing on Friday.  Colin spoke with an old fisherman on the beach who explained that the wind had brought the large batch on on Wednesday.  Just our luck that we were out.

Not an easy task to capture swarming insects.

So once we got control of the insects I lost control of me.  For some unknown reason I became very weak, total lack of energy and appetite.  I just lay about for over 48 hours.  You have to know that if I don’t want a glass of vino or to look at the computer, even my emails, that things are pretty dire.  Today is my first normal day.

Semena Santa/Holy Week began today. We saw more people on the beach today than any other single day thus far this season.

The week ahead promises to be as interesting as the sunset tonight.

Difficult to take photos of swarming insects.

Just as it got dark last evening we noticed many insects swarming around the outside lights.  If you are a new reader you must read how we were attacked last year.   Most interesting is that it was exactly a year ago last night.  You can read about the attack here.  At certain times of the year, mostly in the spring, the termites swarm and come through.  Usually it only lasts an hour or less.  In Mazatlan you can be sitting at a restaurant and get swarmed and notice that the next restaurant over is not being bothered.

We were preparing dinner last year when we were attacked.  Our outdoor lites were on and as well as many inside the RV.  We now know that this attracts the termites, they swarm to the light.  Our windows and vents were open.  As I was standing in the kitchen I felt things falling on my head and shoulders.  They were coming in through the vents and all of the RV orifices.  It was horrific.  If you read my post from last year you will see how bad it was.  Our entire bed was covered in insects.  So what did we do?  We kept killing them and more and more came.  They were everywhere.  Very little sleep that night.

This is how they look when they fly and often loose their wings once they come inside and look like crawling ants. Photo taken from Google.

What should we have done?  Turn off all the lights and close the windows.  Once Colin found several in the kitchen last evening, he and I quickly started shutting the windows and turned on the A/C and turned all of our lights off.  We could see the termites swarming all the lights outside.

It was dinner time and we were hungry so we packed the girls and ourselves into the car.  First stop was to go tell Rae what was happening and then went to the local wee restaurant that is open at night.  Yes there were swarms there also but not as bad as we had near the ocean.  We sat away from the lights and by the time the food was ready most of the termites had disappeared.  They usually pass within 30 minutes.  Sorry but in the rush to leave we forgot the camera.

So we now consider ourselves locals and in the know on how to deal with these swarms of termites.  Our first four years here were termite free and last year made up for it.  But this year we survived.  We had about a dozen to kill last night and I did kill one more on the bed this morning.  We found out today that some RVers had gone out to dinner and left windows open and lights on and came home to a bunch of crawling bugs.  One fellow took a can of Raid and sprayed the inside of his RV in an attempt to kill them.  Tonight we had a few and just sat in the dark in our closed in RV with the A/C on.  They have passed on and now I am free to post.

Meanwhile we are packing up.  This is the start of a pile that we  will put into storage here.

Just before sunset and the onset of the termites we had a cruise ship leave.

In fact we had two large ships in yesterday. The beach has been very busy all week. Evidence of spring break.

It was supposed to be a sunny and 29C/84.2F day and we had an appointment in Vernon to see our chiropractor.  The rest of the day was ours.  Well that did not happen.  First of all the clouds came in and we only got up to 27c/80.6F with the humidex but it was plenty warm enough for us.  Too hot for my running shoes.  That didn’t matter as I never got out for a full walk.  Only managed 5900 steps thus far.  We did walk to the garden and I wore walking sandals, the ones I used in Europe the past two springs.

Kalamalka Lake and Woods Lake.

I woke up with a small medical issue that only occurs every 2 – 3 years but realized I needed a special script.  Love that I can call and ask for what I need.  Anyway the receptionist made an error with the telephone date and the doctor never got back to me.  Finally I called again and within an hour we connected.  Meanwhile my issue had escalated and I needed not only ointment but actual pills.  So after the chiro we hung out waiting for the doctor to call and finally headed home. We stopped at Save On and finally the pharmacy and they were in the midst of filling my prescription. I said no to the pills as I thought I had some at home.

Someone is going camping this weekend.

Turns out that I did have the pills, thank goodness as they are around $400.00 – 500.00.  The ointment was $90.00.  Pills and ointment are working their magic.  Tomorrow I hope to be close to normal.

Love the truck.

Within forty minutes of being home our accountant called to give us the tax news both personally and for the business 😯 definitely a hard pill to swallow. We did not have as many company expenses last year and so need to pay more tax.  Fortunately because of Covid we have to file by June 1st but only need to pay no later that September 1st.

A wonderful drive to Vernon.

Finally got out for a walk to the garden to water and spray for the flea beetle. We discovered that we have huge black carpenter ants everywhere. They just suddenly appeared. Hope they leave as quickly. As we walked home we noticed the ants everywhere.  I read that there are spring flying carpenter ants, guess that is what we have.  Colin thought that he saw a few termites but I think they must have been flying ants and then the wings fell off and that is what we saw.

Our next infestation?

Definitely not the day we had planned.

I have not tried this but if someone does please let me know if it works. We don’t have shaving cream in the house.

Happy April Fools day…..not 🙁

Eric our RV tech arrived at 9:15PM last night.  Meanwhile  we had a good dinner and had both showered.  The RV was ready to go other than the problem with the bedroom slide.  The good news is that the termites passed us by.

First problem, detected within 3 minutes is that the on/off  switch  in the bedroom slide is not working as in the spring is not working properly.  Not a big deal.  The main slide problem is due to the new slide out rubber Eric had installed in January.  Hard to explain but it has something to do with the rubber expanding and the memory the rubber has.  Seems he has to cut some rubber off.  Likely we will have to have him do the same thing with the living room slide.

By now we would have been in bed due to the 5AM wake up call.  The girls and I slept on the living room sofa while two guys went in and out as well as Colin trying to fix the problem.  I woke up about 11PM so discover that they were leaving.

We apparently are not.  Good thing I slept through it all as I would have been rather stressed.

So today we await the return of Eric, after he completes other jobs he had scheduled for this morning.  No idea when he will arrive.  No idea on when the slide/slides will be repaired.  Apparently the consensus is that it can be fixed but when?  No idea when we will be leaving here.  No idea how far we will be going if we can even leave today.  Or do we wait until 5:30AM tomorrow?  Likely we won’t be leaving today but hopefully tomorrow.  As Lucy commented on my last post, things happen for a reason.  We can only hope that our delay was for a good reason.

What I do know is that I will be spending the day changing all of our reservations and plans for the next week.  I had planned a few relax and enjoy days but those will now become travel days.  One of those relax and enjoy days had already been scheduled to do all the flea bedding at a laundromat with hot water.  We do have to be in Vancouver, B.C. for April 15th to get the RV serviced and as that is a Friday the date can’t be delayed.  The next day we will head home where a slew of appointments await us for our first two weeks there.

Meanwhile we get to enjoy yet another final beach walk and celebrate Caeli’s 11th birthday today.

Caeli on an earlier beach walk, not wanting to get hosed off.

Carmeh being sweet. Colin was reaching under the sofa into our storage there and she was too relaxed to move.

Amusingly this is yet another pack up and then a bit of a mini set up again this season 😕

Our dust screen really protects us. We still get dust from horses passing by on the road next to as but not as bad as it could be.  I love to power wash things 🙂

We had so much propane left in one of our tanks that we had to burn off the fuel otherwise it would expand from all the heat in Arizona and we could have had a problem.  We did not sit and enjoy the flames as we were packing up inside.

Carmeh finds a spot to rest.

Caeli also finds a place to nap under all the chaos during pour pack up.

So now we just wait and see what comes next.

We are in our final major pack up.  About 11AM today it came to my attention that the girls have fleas.  Of course they are on monthly flea meds but as happened 2 years ago ( also the end of March ) they have fleas.  I insisted that the vet see us ASAP and they did and they did the flea bath, poor girls were so stressed.  Well so were we.  The hard part is the cleaning and disinfecting and fumigation of everything.  It takes hours and needs to be done every few days.  As we are leaving Friday AM there is no way to get our bedding laundered nor the girls bedding and blankets on the sofa, etc.  At the moment things are in plastic garbage bags.  Seems like I will be spending my time in Yuma cleaning rather than shopping.

Finally got the first round of disinfecting done and went out to dinner with friends.  Got back to see that the termites had come through.  We spent the last hour killing over 300 of them and are still on patrol.

I had a lovely post lined up but no time…..

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day trying to complete today to dos with tomorrows.  Colin keeps killing as I am typing.

Time for showers and an early bedtime.  We are exhausted.  Not a fun way to spend our last two days here.  Just got an email from our vet back in Canada, she is going to check with the rep who sells the Advantix 2 and see what he has to say about the situation.