Floods and Pests

I though I would put up some pictures from our flood last week...we did actually start moving stuff upstairs in case the water actually came in the house. Our home, for those of you who don't know this, is in an old rice patty. Hmmm. Our whole subdivision is. There is a stream that goes by our house...a bit away, but when the sky let's loose, the stream comes for a visit. There is a history of our home (which is owned by the Nazarene Philippine Field) being flooded with three feet of water as the record, but with many times coming inside the house, just not that high. Therefore, surrounding the house is a sealed, cement block wall. There are gates that we can open during dry season, but they are able to be sealed off during rainy season. Our driveway is also equipped with a ramp...somewhat like an oil changing ramp, for our car to rest on dry land when it does flood. There have been some very prudent missionaries living in this house who have gone to a lot of effort to keep the inside of the house dry. We are grateful to them!

(This is the driveway on a normal day...)

(The back yard floods after the front)

(The picture below is inside the wall...starting to get concerned!)

(This is the following day. The water was over the top of this bridge)

(There is a new building being excavated for here and the wall along the street fell due to the flood.)

The morning after the flood, I went to grab a "box" of milk out of the pantry and my finger went right into the milk. Scared me half to death...yes, I'm a little jumpy at times. I looked down at the box and this is what I found. Fortunately, the hole was chewed on the top of the box and not the bottom....

Then the next day I was watering my plants and noticed that one had some strange "dust" on it. I looked closer and noticed on the ledge beside it was a bunch of wood shavings...

I looked up (which was the only direction there was any wood and this is what I found...

(The hole is the size of a golf ball)

It appears that we have a stow-away in our home. Hopefully soon I can tell you the end of the story. In the mean time, I will probably be walking the house with a rather large stick!

I took the dog outside on the lawn to bathe him and discovered he was being the carrier of a family of ticks. I had even put the medicine on the back of his neck so he won't get them. Hmm possibly the medicine didn't work?

As he was out on the cement drying (after I had carefully sprayed all the dirt off the patio) I noticed that there were these slug-like, worm-like things heading toward him and he was having a fit! I called my helper to the back yard and asked her what they were. She got a little panicky and stomped on them and say "these are bad, bad! They will suck your blood!" Ewww! They were leeches!

Some days here I am blissfully ignorant to the wild-life that takes place all around me. I think I prefer to not know there are rat's trying to bunk with us. I would prefer to not have my dog providing nourishment for the local tick family, and, I CERTAINLY didn't want to know that the back yard that I let Mari play in, barefooted, is the home of leeches.

Well, despite yucky flood waters and pests, we still are still very grateful to be here. Fortunately, the good things outweigh the bad :)

At least it has been over a year since I have been awarded this orientation to our new home :)