More domestic dilemmas

Last week I had someone in to put dead bolts on the back door, and the door that leads from the basement to the outside. Ever since my scare of a couple of months back, when I thought someone had gotten into my basement, I've wanted to do this. I realized that although, in that particular instance, there had been no home invasion, there could be, without great difficulty, because the locks on both doors were the kind burglars are always using credit cards to unlock in the movies.

I now feel much more secure. But that isn't my domestic dilemma. While he was here, the locksmith told me he thought the rather floppy tree that stands beside the steps that lead down from my little deck is poison sumac. I found this hard to believe because I thought poison sumac grew in bushes, and it also seemed rather incredible that my landlord would have poison sumac plants growing around the house (besides that tree, there are a number of trees-in-the-making below the deck, crowding around that door to the basement).

Checking online, I find that poison sumac does grow into trees, as well as shrubs. And the leaves certainly do look like the fluttering leaves on the plants in question. But I also find that there are non-poisonous versions of sumac, and now I'm hoping that that is what I have. But how to be sure? Last year I cut away some of the branches that were making it difficult to get up and down the back stairs, but I wore my leather gloves to do that work, as I always do. So my hands did not come into contact with the leaves. Presumably, if they had, and there was no adverse reaction to the contact, I could rest assured that this plant – which does a nice job in the summer of helping to break up what would otherwise be a rather severe facade – was one of the innocuous forms of sumac. But I don't care to experiment with bare hands!

And then there are the slugs! Nasty creatures, that destroy the leaves on the plants in the flower beds to either side of my tiny front stoop. I found a book at the library that told me spreading sawdust or bran (surely a rather expensive alternative) would discourage the varmints. But, the book warns, these prophylactic measures must be reapplied after it rains. For the past two weeks it has done very little but rain – indeed, we Mainers are beginning to fear we are in for another soggy summer like the one we had last year – so these are obviously not very satisfactory solutions for my problem. The book also suggests just picking them off as you see them, and dropping them into a pail of salty water to end their miserable little lives. Ugg. Not even with leather gloves on.

All this gardening stuff is not in my bailiwick. Having to keep up the yard is the one real drawback to living in a house, as far as I am concerned. And Starving Librarians are hard-pressed to afford people to come and do it for them. Yes, this is another time it would be nice to Have a Man Around the House...