What a beautiful summer we have had here this year.
My only (constant) complaint has been the grotesque amount of bugs that I've been dealing with this year. After being told by the city that they don't really care about the giant ant hill in the back of our yard (on their property), my husband and I were forced to take matters into our own bug-killing hands. Normally, a few ants, here and there, I live and let live and it doesn't really bother me.
However, when you are traipsing through the lush undergrowth that lives behind your house and you discover a massive ant hill infested with red and black thatching ants, something nuclear needs to happen.
After a small amount of research and a quick phone call to an exterminator, my husband learned that thatching ants live in massive colonies and multiply in their minute attempt to take over the world (and our yard in short order).
And they bite.
We have an old, long-haired, black Chow Chow / Labrador cross who likes to lay in the grass and, since our ant problem has increased, I have noticed a few stray ants crawling out from under her while she is napping in the house.
We also have two children who like to play in the backyard and get eaten by bugs and they are currently covered in mosquito and insect bites.
With these reasons in mind, and the knowledge that there is a nest a few short feet from our property line, Operation Ant Massacre began in earnest.
Armed with an assortment of ant-killing chemicals and misinformation on Google, I donned my ant-killing attire in preparation for the potential swarms.
My ensemble made me look like I was a crazy person who lived under a bridge and talked to rats.I wore a stylish black- and white-checked rubber boots, jeans tucked into my boots covered with hand-knitted, purple and blue striped leg-warmers, a long-sleeved red waffle shirt and a wide-brimmed, Easter-coloured, straw gardening hat. Vanity aside, I was prepared for any crawlies attempting to get into my clothes.
While my husband boiled up a vat of boric acid and water on the stove, I drew a thick line of diatomaceous earth in a circle around the nest.
(If any of my readers watch the television show Supernatural, it was similar to trapping a demon in a circle of salt.)
The circle was to prevent the ants from grabbing their eggs and running away once we poured the boiling boric acid on the nest.
I had a little diatomaceous earth left over after my circle of death so I spread the remainder on the nest itself and then the demon pile erupted in activity.
And by "activity", I mean swarms of ants everywhere.
I yelped and ran away.
After being inspected by my husband to make sure there was nothing crawling on me, I then grabbed a pitchfork, cut the top off of the nest and poured the boiling boric acid and water into the middle of pile or horror.
Then the ants tried to grab their babies and ran.
Little ants were popping up everywhere and grabbing their little eggs while I was waiting and doused them with more chemicals.
It was carnage.
Thankfully, the massacre was largely successful with only a few stragglers existing the following morning.
We celebrated our ant killing by camping in our backyard with the kids in our (mostly) ant-free home.I learned a few things during this process: 1. Organic bug killing solutions found on the internet do not work in any identifiable way and 2. there is satisfaction in extermination using chemicals.
Good luck with your own bug battles.
