The stairs, the stairs

Yahoo! The steps are in!

We have been several months using a set of Rubbermaid steps off the back door. The old stairs were getting rather decrepit. When we had the patio resurfaced Ken took the camping "hawk" to them. The idea being to build a new somewhat larger platform and put in steps wide enough to actually fit a full foot.

Somehow the timing wasn't working out to get the design done and the lumber bought and the steps built. Until now.

TigerBoy, Raven and the kids came down on Saturday. The guys went to work and the stairs were in in fairly short order. It only took them 2 trips to the hardware store to get done. The first trip to get a new wood saw because the old one needed a new blade and this one is multi-purpose and has interchangeable blades; it seemed more cost effective. The second trip was to pick up a couple of 2X2's to fill the gaps between the platform boards. For some reason I didn't know that a 12" board wasn't actually a 12" board, how silly of me.

The new stairs look fantastic!!!!

I also learned a good home lesson on Saturday - concerning fruit flies.

The last round of summer fruits brought in the little buggers. (I think it was the pears.) 'Not sure why they weren't around all summer but I'm glad they weren't! Anyway the last week or so we have had a bunch of them in the corner of the kitchen.

Raven told me to put 3/4" - 1 inch of apple cider vinegar in a wide mouth glass and add just a drop or two of dish detergent. Swish it a bit to mix it up then just set it on the counter.

IT WORKS!

The flies go for the cider vinegar and ingest the poison of the detergent at the same time. Within a couple of hours there were significantly fewer flies in the air and a bunch of them drowned in the glass.

Don't you love the old home remedies?