So, this afternoon I tried soaking some cigarette butts in water in a jar. Went out and captured three squash bugs in another jar. After a while, ran the cigarette water through a coffee filter and placed it in a spray bottle. Sprayed the squash bugs with it.

It worked to some degree! The two smallest bugs died. The largest remained alive but seemed weaker and stopped feeding.

So I took the spray bottle out and selectively sprayed the pumpkin plants. I'll try doing that every day for a few days and see how it works.

Here's a surprise. Haven't been watering the front yard but we have had some occasional rain lately. Few months ago, I had planted some pumpkin and corn in the front yard which never grew. Suddenly, several pumpkin plants have appeared after all this time! Unless it rains on a fairly regular basis, not counting on them surviving or producing but they could surprise me. Get out there tomorrow and pull the weeds near them.

Some small patches of grass in the back yard have actually grown tall enough to cut. However, I'm not going to cut it. Current plan is to till it under, along with weeds in other places. Until now, none of the grass ever did grow enough to mow this year. And the only spot which has grown enough to mow is underneath where one tarp shaded that area.

Never got any cleaning done today. Been feeling like garbage all week. Not sure why. All I really got done was taking the tarps down, taking the second electrician test and doing dishes. Still have tomorrow and daytime Monday this weekend to get lots of cleaning done. Tomorrow I'll force myself to do it no matter how I feel. Maybe allergies or maybe I just needed to take a break from always being active. But I figure one day of intense cleaning will make a huge difference.So, this afternoon I tried soaking some cigarette butts in water in a jar. Went out and captured three squash bugs in another jar. After a while, ran the cigarette water through a coffee filter and placed it in a spray bottle. Sprayed the squash bugs with it.

It worked to some degree! The two smallest bugs died. The largest remained alive but seemed weaker and stopped feeding.

So I took the spray bottle out and selectively sprayed the pumpkin plants. I'll try doing that every day for a few days and see how it works.

Here's a surprise. Haven't been watering the front yard but we have had some occasional rain lately. Few months ago, I had planted some pumpkin and corn in the front yard which never grew. Suddenly, several pumpkin plants have appeared after all this time! Unless it rains on a fairly regular basis, not counting on them surviving or producing but they could surprise me. Get out there tomorrow and pull the weeds near them.

Some small patches of grass in the back yard have actually grown tall enough to cut. However, I'm not going to cut it. Current plan is to till it under, along with weeds in other places. Until now, none of the grass ever did grow enough to mow this year. And the only spot which has grown enough to mow is underneath where one tarp shaded that area.

Never got any cleaning done today. Been feeling like garbage all week. Not sure why. All I really got done was taking the tarps down, taking the second electrician test and doing dishes. Still have tomorrow and daytime Monday this weekend to get lots of cleaning done. Tomorrow I'll force myself to do it no matter how I feel. Maybe allergies or maybe I just needed to take a break from always being active. But I figure one day of intense cleaning will make a huge difference.