2 battles fought tonight, ST is 1-1

UGH.

I had a long day at work today and very much looked fwd to coming home, starting a load of clothes to wash, getting comfortable and then making some dinner. What happens when I walk in the door? I walk back to my kitchen to grab a bottle of water and that’s when I see the trail. Of ants. From my back door to the wall to my countertops. This is the one thing I hate about spring and summer: bugs and other assorted tiny multi(!)-legged things that get active this time of the year.

I had to take everything off the countertops, spray them with ant spray, give the dead ants their proper burial in the trashcan, take the bag out to the big trashcan, come back inside and Soft Scrub my counters and sink, and then go behind them and use several Clorox wipes to make sure the germs were gone and the ant spray cleaned off. I also had to clean out the cabinet under my sink as well as one drawer next to it.

While my countertops were drying out from being wiped down with the Soft Scrub and the Clorox wipes, I decided to go out back and trim back my rose bushes (the two left in the backyard from the prior owners of my townhome) because they were overwhelming my kitchen window. I put on garden gloves and proceeded to go out and start trimming. The thorns on these bushes are massive – which I didn’t realize until today – and as a result, they dug through my gardening gloves and cut me in three places. GRRRRRRRRR. I hate gardening. The rose bushes are going to have to go.

To make matters even worse, tomorrow is trash day so I had to roll my trash can around the building to bring it up front so as soon as I’m done trimming the rose bushes, I go ahead and start the trek around the back of the building to the front of it. Who happens to be walking out of his sliding glass doors in the back of his townhome but the new cute *single* male neighbor two doors down, who (before today) I had not met and had only barely seen before. So the first glimpse of me he gets is one of me smelling like a mixture of ant spray and Soft Scrub, sweating from gardening, wearing dirty gardening gloves, leaves in my hair, and an overall unkempt “been outside fighting with rose bushes and lost” look. Great. He was very polite, but is probably now thinking that his neighbor two doors down is Phyllis Diller’s granddaughter.

I didn’t finish getting all that done (rose bush trimming and putting my kitchen back together) until almost 7:30. I was starving so I scubbed my hands clean in order to make a quick dinner. Now I’m getting ready to get cleaned up a bit, and then log back on later as I have blogging to catch up on tonight. Not to mention I’m now working on that load of clothes I wanted to do first thing when I got home so I’ll be up for a few more hours.

So that’s been my evening so far: I’m 0-1 with the rose bushes but 1-0 with ants.

And how was YOUR day?

18 Responses to "2 battles fought tonight, ST is 1-1"

Ryan says:

June 15, 2006 at 9:13 pm

A great day. I doubt you made a bad impression on him. It shows your willing to get your hands dirty, and are probably down-to-earth. There’s nothing wrong with that. People don’t do their own yard work around here.. all the illegals do it
Severian says:

June 15, 2006 at 9:17 pm

I feel for you, I hate gardening, and I recently had a knock down drag out months long fight with tiny tiny sugar ants that about had me ready to employ tactical nukes. Little buggers didn’t appear to want to eat anything, they never trailed to anything, but they were all over the place in the kitchen, and in the audio cabinet. I’d clean them out, they’d be right back. Never could tell what was attracting them, but after about 2 or 3 months of fighting them I found them streaming in around the front door running over the top of my turntable cabinet. I sprayed the heck out of that, and finally they seemed to take the hint and haven’t been back. Argh.

So, don’t worry about the guy though, now you have a chance to wow him by appearing all gussied up when you see him next time. Bet he’ll do a spanky double take!
Dana says:

June 15, 2006 at 9:33 pm

Sis, your single male neighbor now knows you aren’t some high-maintenance cutie, who sits on the sofa and expects others to do the work, but a hard working woman who carries her own weight. If your single male neighbor is worth anything more than just eye candy, he’ll appreciate you more, not less.

But “bugs and other assorted tiny 4-legged things that get active this time of the year?”
Big Bang Hunter says:

June 15, 2006 at 9:40 pm

– 4 legs?….Hmmmm…. hope they had more than that or you might actually have been attacked by an army of miniature Donkeycrats… Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk…..

– Bang
Sister Toldjah says:

June 15, 2006 at 9:46 pm

Oh, you know what I mean Dana! LOL – “multi-legged” is what I should have written … Same same to you, Mr. Bang! I just fixed the post to note the correction

Sev – I can’t figure out what these ants were trailing to, either. My kitchen is spotless and if I throw food in the trash I usually empty the trash that same night outside.

Ryan – well, if my neighbor is impressed that I work out in the garden, I hope he won’t be too disappointed when I alert him to the fact that my gardening adventures are few and far in between. A green thumb I am *not* LOL.

Be back in a bit.
Severian says:

June 15, 2006 at 9:49 pm

A green thumb I am *not* LOL.

Me either, I can kill plastic plants…
Big Bang Hunter says:

June 15, 2006 at 9:53 pm

– ST, Just a wild guess here, but somehow I’m thinking it wouldn’t be your thumbs he was interested in, pretty though they might be….

– Bang
benning says:

June 15, 2006 at 10:42 pm

Now that you have me turned on … I’m going to bed! Hmmmph!
4thelittleguy says:

June 15, 2006 at 11:16 pm

I’ll go out on a limb here ST and guess that you didn’t look as bad as you think. From my experience, most girls look the best when they think they look the worst.

Next time you talk to him, don’t worry about it, you probably made a great impression.
sanity says:

June 15, 2006 at 11:17 pm

I can’t figure out what these ants were trailing to, either. My kitchen is spotless and if I throw food in the trash I usually empty the trash that same night outside.

I have noticed for some reason ants are attracted to damp areas, so may want to check there.

I get them in the bathroom at times, if damp towel falls the the floor, sometimes there will be a few ants underneath when I pick it up in the morning.
Big Bang Hunter says:

June 15, 2006 at 11:28 pm

Hmmmm…. using the restroom must be a real E-Ticket ride at your house sanity…. *chuckle*

– Bang
sanity says:

June 15, 2006 at 11:30 pm

I said when a damp towel falls, didnt say I live in a ant farm….
Big Bang Hunter says:

June 15, 2006 at 11:37 pm

*chuckle* – just pulling you leg san….

– Believe me, I’ve done my share of battles with the little “legal” aliens…and you’re correct. It’s the moisture that draws them…Especially in swarming season…

– Bang
G-Monster says:

June 15, 2006 at 11:39 pm

There is a white powder you can get at the hardware store. You sprinkle it around the front of your home. It works pretty good. The ants take it back into the nest, and you will never see an ant again.
Big Bang Hunter says:

June 16, 2006 at 12:04 am

– Sounds sort of like what happens when you hand out deferments at a Liberal “Iraq focus meeting” GM…

– Bang
Dana says:

June 16, 2006 at 7:55 am

Sis, maybe this’ll inspire you to work out in the garden more — in your Daisy Dukes!
Malcor says:

June 16, 2006 at 12:45 pm

Awwww… don’t be so mean to my little six-legged friends.

The easiest way to get rid of them is to use their natural ‘programming’ against them. Find their initial food source (what they came inside to find in the first place). Dampness may attract them later, but it’s always the fault of a single scout that found a munchie and dragged her butt across the ground to make a trail for the rest of them.

After removing the offending substance, they’ll still crawl over the area for a few days (just in case, I guess… most likely it’s just because it takes awhile for the pheremone trail to dissipate completely, but particularly persistant ones can go for a week). Track it back to the initial mound and dump some sort of munchie halfway between the two directly in the path (wet sugar clumps work well, though old squished fruit is easy too). If you can’t find the original mound (or, alternatively, the original food source), simply find the point of entry to your house and put some in the path there.

The little blighters are cute, but not very bright… once they find the food, they will gather it and then head back to the mound, dropping a ‘return’ trail as they go. Once one of the actual scouts hits it and reinforces it with the proper scent, all the rest will just follow and you’ve ended up sidetracking the entire pile. After that they’ll have to send out scouts again as normal, but they’ll have a stronger trail to follow (the new one they just reinforced) and once the new scouts return to your house… well, you did remove the initial munchie they were going after, right? No more worries.

Of course, if a clever queen managed to build her nest somewhere inside your home (such as between some boards, under the floor, in the cracks in a wall, right under the doorstop, etc) then you’ll have to result to poison. But if the source is external, well, you don’t need to waste money on expensive poisons or traps. Obviously if you’ve got kids that like to play with dirt, you might want to exterminate the mounds outside, but that’s easy enough.
forest hunter says:

June 16, 2006 at 11:56 pm

The sweetness is the main draw ST. Our nickname for the multi-legged cooties is sugar ants. What ya got that`s sweet an wet laying around?

Actually, I have some great ant traps here in Japan that work similar to the (Rotenone?) white powder sprinkled on the perimeter mentioned in an earlier post. There must be something like that over there in the big city.

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