Preparation for our first stay – after years – in our little country house involved a couple of trips, to connect gas, fix a few odds and ends. This trip included killing a small wasp nest where we park the car, and bringing back a shovel to bury the dog.

The dog was the smallest of the crowd that bark when we go by with our dogs, and the only aggressive one. Yesterday it turned up dead for no apparent reason, ten meters off the road, right on our path. I took a side trip after the walk to ask the 3XL neighbor about it. No, it wasn’t his but his neighbors; don’t know what happened to it; yes, the owners know about it.

Armed with that knowledge, we had a pretty good idea what would happen next: nothing. Hence the shovel. It would be a quick job as the area is all sand.

Halfway through digging, I looked up to see Syd, who had ridden his bike to see if the corpse was still there, in order to let me know whether I needed the shovel. Not long after a young neighbor wandered over. He’d apparently been thinking he would have to bury this now-fly-infested thing. Syd got a nearby piece of discarded shade cloth (covering an ant’s nest, but hey), grabbed the dog by two legs and dumped it in the hole. The neighbor took the shovel from me and filled it in.

Then it occurred to me that Syd might get a kick out of the rig I improvised to spray spiders in the peak of our bedroom ceiling. He did, and said I should blog about it. So here we are.

I don’t remember now why I used wire instead of string.

Probably to intercept less of the liquid coming out. The can is actually slightly offset to avoid spraying directly on the wire.

Anyway, it works!