Monday, January 17, 2005

A Christmas Thaw Brings Back the Fleas

The fleas returned this summer, the nematodes apparently having run their lives and died out.

We had a miserable time with them in the house again before I salted the rugs one night and let that desiccate their eggs. That killed the eggs, a bath washed them out of Sandy's fur, and then a flea collar ended up being what it took to keep them off her afterward. Can you believe that Frontline failed to kill the fleas on her, even when I waited a week after giving the dog a bath to apply the stuff?

It took until the onset of cold weather to kill the fleas in the yard, which meant we had to keep Sandy out of the yard and let her out only for walks on the street.

With the recent warm weather around Christmas, the fleas managed to re-enter the yard and we even found one inside the house today. Now that the ground is frozen solid again, I expect we'll have a break from them until springtime, when I'm adding more nematodes and planting a few bazillion marigolds to keep the groundhogs, insects and stray cats at bay.

With any luck, Sandy's flea collar will take care of the stragglers in the house, although I'm tempted to salt the carpet again.

I'm probably also going to check and see what I can do legally about cats wandering through my yard, since they bring fleas to the yard, dig in my flower beds and leave their disease-laden presents where my children can find them.

(I'm tempted to plant a bunch of catnip in the pesky neighbor's yard down the street, to draw all the cats there, but that would be low.)

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