Just Keeps Getting Worse

  Sometimes life throws stuff at you that seems to be more than you can handle.  You muddle through and, by all rights, thing should get better.  Just when you think things are starting to look up, the whole kit and caboodle is hurled at you with the greatest of force.  At times like that, you better duck your head until the blast passes and then come up fighting.  That is how it is here on the Bayou.  Things are not looking the best at the moment but I am still swinging and hope to win the battle. 

  Hurricanes are wicked things that come in with a fury and smack everything in the path.  The Little Bayou House has withstood even the strongest of these but I am not sure just how many more blasts the old place can take.  Hurricane Katrina is doing far more damage to the place today than it did twelve years ago.  I am talking about termites...again.  The critters came into the area after the hurricane, made themselves at home and then started eating that home...all the homes on the Coast.  We have been fighting the wood-munching critters for years now.  The war is on and we do win some battles but today...I found that the termites are sneaky.  

  I needed a book off the shelf in the dining room.  Bookshelves flank the fireplace and are filled with old books...some dating as far back as the early 1800's.  I love these dusty old things and often read them.  But today, the story of the books is heartbreaking.  Termites had tunneled their way up through the shelves and into the books.  Yep, the termites had chewed right through the pages of the books.  Two of the books were Pop's old school books.  I was almost as angry over the loss of these as I was the shelves and, well, literally my house.  There is no defeating these things!  

  Son and I pulled hundreds of books from the shelves, checked them for bugs, packed them in large trash bags and sprayed them.  He, then, started ripping out the built-in shelves.  The dining room will be gutted and we will go from there.  If the damage is too extensive, I am almost to the point of building a new house.  It is that bad....and just keeps getting worse.