Fire Ants

Fire Ants

All the rain has loosened the soil. Yesterday was a perfect time to weed the new flowerbed area. I put the gloves on for thorns and poison ivy. I sprayed the exposed skin for mosquitoes. Then I stepped in a fire ant nest. It really didn’t bother me for a while. What are those little prickers on my legs? Then I saw the ants.

There are quite a few fire ant hills in my yard. I am a live and let live type of person. I don’t bother them until they bite. They bit. I did too. I have some “Fire Ant Mound Destroyer”. I sprinkled that on the mound and around a stump where they had a large presence. I hate to use poisons and other noxious chemicals but sometimes there is not much choice. One year when I had ants coming into the garden area, I planted a border of peppermint. I will plant some peppermint where the anthill is (was). The other noxious chemical I use is “deit”. I spray myself for mosquitoes. The mosquitoes are worse than the poison.

There is another partial solution for mosquitoes. I put mosquito dunks in the birdbath and in the rain barrels. It has bacillus thuringienses. It is like killing Indians with smallpox infected blankets. This is a deadly disease for bugs. Biological warfare if you will. I don’t approve of this against people; but is genocide against mosquitoes all bad? Actually it is. Mosquitoes are to land what shrimp are to the ocean. They are at the bottom of the food chain. They are also at the top of the food chain. They close the circle of life.



David Segrest is an International REALTOR in Charlotte, NC. His email is david@segrestrealty.com , His webpage is http://www.segrestrealty.com , and his international real estate blog is http://dointernationalrealestate.blogspot.com/.