Oogie creature repellent

In the three years we've lived here, I've had three personal encounters with "Esses." I have to say "Esses" because I'm not allowed to use the real word in this house. But if you're not sure what I'm talking about, just think about a certain creature that starts with the letter S and rhymes with rake and you'll know what an "Ess" is.

Most of the Esses we have around here are harmless Garden Esses. Not that it matters, because anytime I have an encounter with an Ess, no matter how brief, and no matter that the encounter always ends with the Ess taking off like a bat out of Hades (seriously, I think the scare factor is mutual - they're just as scared of us as we are of them) it still leaves my heart pounding.

So last week, when I happened upon an episode of The Dr. Oz Show about pest control, I found myself paying attention. Dr. Oz's guest was Billy Bretherton of A&E's Billy The Exterminator. Billy recommended a certain product that repels Esses. It's a powder that you sprinkle around places where you don't want Esses. Esses don't like the smell of the stuff, and according to Billy, they won't go near it.

I wonder if it would be possible to order this by the truckload and have our entire house and yard covered in it?

Well, anyway, yesterday we went to our local nursery to get a truck full of dirt for the new raised bed garden, and I happened to see this product. Unfortunately,  the product container actually has a rather scary photo of an Ess on it, and it has the real Ess word written on it at least 20 times, which is - of course - not acceptable in our home. I knew I would have to censor this, so I covered up the photo and the product name, and used a permanent marker to wipe out all mention of the Ess word.

This certainly made it more acceptable to have the product hanging around. I'm glad it's an ecologically safe product. Let's hope it works!