Bug Sweeper

We are almost five months in and have just made a couple of appliance purchases. Our floors are wood and tile so a dust mop and broom have been effective tools. With the start of the rain, there is an EXPLOSION of insect life inside the house. During the dry season, we saw a few bugs inside the house; they mostly gathered up in the corners of the ceiling where our resident spiders would capture them. In the last 4 weeks, the population of live and dead insects has multiplied exponentially. The mosquitos are the most insidious as they are very hardy. You can slap them and when you remove your hand, they ably fly away! The worst are the huge flying cockroaches! They are very fast and get into all sorts of items. Both M and I found cockroaches INSIDE are closed water bottles and inside the Brita water jug! Yuck.

Fortunately, M brought a mosquito net to set up over the bed using the shock cords from a pup tent that we also brought in one of the many suitcases. This net is designed to hang from the ceiling and since our ceilings are so high that wasn't an option. This is a very handy workaround. We "seal" ourselves in by tucking the edges of the net into the bed rails and fall asleep to the twinkling of the fireflies flying around the ceiling. We don't know how the grasshoppers, moths, preying mantis, fireflies, cockroaches, mosquitos etc are entering the house. We have screens on all our doors and windows and are fastidious in keeping them tightly closed.

In the morning, our counters in the kitchen and bathrooms are littered with dead bug bodies. And the tracks of the 6 sliding doors are lined with dead bugs too. That's where I'm concentrating the sucking power of our new "aspiradora." A 1200 watt Sankey that we purchased at the "Deposito de Golfito." The Deposito is a series of stores that offer duty free goods in Costa Rica. Unlike shopping in Panama, when we purchase goods at the Deposito, we don't have to worry about being pulled over by the Transito (the customs police). The products sold at the Deposito still more expensive than those sold in Panama but a little less expensive than stores in San José. This little vacuum cleaner cost $49.00 and boy does it suck, (in a good way.) It is sucking up dead bugs with tenacity. And Jorge suggested that we give the contents of the vacuum bag to the hens. I'm happy and they will be happy too.

We bought a pressure washer and for something fun, we purchased a Cuisinart Ice Cream maker. M and I really enjoy ice cream. Back in California, we used to have a bowl of ice cream almost every night after dinner. The logistics of getting a container of ice cream from a store in Paso Canoas to our refrigerator at home was challenging. We have an ice cooler where we placed ice packs. However, by the time we finished a few hours of shopping in Paso and drove for an hour home, the ice cream was more cream than ice. I couldn't wait to try it out. Modifying one of the recipes in the Cuisinart book, I used a can of Cream of Coco and a couple of very ripe plantains with a dash of cinnamon. Wow! Delicious!