Ants

With the spring rains and the warm temperatures, our home (and our yard) has blossomed into a retreat for ants of all shapes, sizes, and appetites.


In order to keep myself from completely flipping out, i'm trying to remember the Safari Ants that we had to deal with in Africa. We would walk through a trail of Safari Ants without knowing it until they had managed to walk up through our clothes and they all decide to bite at once! Their little pinchers keep them hanging on pretty fiercely - people have been known to fully de-clothe to get these buggers off. They also had a reputation for killing chickens. We eventually learned what kind of atmospheres were attractive to safari ants and were able to look for them before they found us (sometimes). but when we were first there, we learned the hard way how to detect and avoid these guys. okay, in that light, our current ant situation isn't THAT bad, is it?


We have ANTS!!! Even since about February / March, we've found small concentrations of ants in our house. Especially beneath our recycle bag and underneath the cold beverage refrigerator in the laundry room. They have also been found in my laundry hamper (i'm thinking my starbucks aprons are quite the feast). We have set up murder-feasts for them, and they have lowered the number of ants under the fridge but they are still in our recyclables. I have been better about placing dirty starbucks aprons in the laundry. But more recently, we have found them in a line from our bathroom window to our medicine cabinet. I think they like my listerine! stupid little jerks.


These guys are giving me issues. I'm told they might be carpenter ants. but i'm not sure what they are doing in my kitchen cabinets and pantry. One morning, i was (hardely) awake at 3:30am, and i opened the kitchen cabinet to have a bowl of cereal before i headed off to work. i was very tired, and when i opened the cabinet a dozen ginormous, juicy, black ants fell out and scurried across the counter. i literally screamed! It had surprised me. When landon ran out of the bedroom to see what was wrong, he found me crying in the kitchen. We left the cabinets open all day that day to see if they would leave (it appears that they are really smart - when they see us, they run for cover, and they prefer dark places). Well, i have never found more than 3 together ever again. but i did see two yesterday. These guys are tricky. We put murder-feast in our cabinets for them to feast upon, but it is untouched. We never find them on any of our food, only just lingering around beneath our bowls and plates and within our pantry items. I have no idea what to do with them. They freak me out.

Sunday when i mowed the lawn, i came across multiple ant colonies in our lawn. One of them is the HUGEST ant colony i have ever seen! (outside of termite mounds in sub-saharan africa). We have a few smaller patches also and they are spread in every area of our lawn. I tried to mow those suckers down and out! but of course, that was futile. I thought i had an ingenius idea! I was remember elementary school science projects and decided that covering their home with baking soda and then saturating it with vinegar might do the trick. that was fun to do and actually kept the ants from resurfacing for 2 days. but yesterday i saw them rebuilding...

I've looked into some solutions. It's a little tricky to find something that will drive out ants, and keep them out that is affordable and not toxic enough to put in our cabinets, or something that Duvick won't be poisoned by. So far, i haven't found anything besides these (USELESS) little murder-feasts (that is not what they're called - i forget their names, but this seems fitting of their purpose, whether they accomplish it or not). i am SO VERY open for suggestions!

Coming from Colorado, where if we have ants, we call the exterminator! (and we don't really get ants), i've been pretty bothered by this. Landon told me (as a Georgia boy) that summer weather brings ants and you can keep them at a minimum, but you just can't get rid of them.