Two Cents Worth
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Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose.
You have all heard ad nauseum about my ant problem. A couple years ago I ripped out the ugly patio stone entryway to my house and had a lovely brick walkway put in from driveway to porch. I am still so happy with the way it looks and am often out sweeping off the maple keys, leaves and whatever falls on it.
Steven dug out the space like four feet deep, layered gravel, sand, fabric type stuff up to the top so there is no fear of heaving or the stones becoming uneven. It is a beautiful job and he put the time in to make sure it stays that way.
But soon ant hills began popping up between the stones. Nothing will defeat Steve’s hard work more than all those ant tunnels burrowed underneath the walkway. The amount of sediment they pile above the surface has to come from somewhere and eventually the tunnels will cave in and the path will become uneven.
I couldn’t have that, so I have invested much money into a variety of products trying eliminate the pests not to mention the time in placing capfuls of this and drops of that, blowing foam through straws into the holes. I also have used numerous homemade concoctions which the ants all seemed to love. One hill would be destroyed and two more erupted a couple inches away. Morgan said I was becoming obsessed and he delighted in telling me I would never win.
Well, this spring I found a spray ‘ant killer’ and I saturated each hill. Fewer and fewer new hills were excavated until eventually there were no new hills at all. This is it, I thought. I will buy gallons of this stuff and every time there is even a tiny sign of an ant hill I will drown them out with the chemical. For several days nothing. I watched closely and a few more days showed no indication of ants anywhere in or around the walkway.
You can imagine the celebration, the elation, the huffing and puffing about how I finally got rid of the ants. I won!
One day this week I decided to weed the garden out front and plant some hostas. As I walked across the lawn I discovered – you guessed it – ant hills.
All across the lawn were hills, some small, some quite large. And over by the garden closest to the road was a patch three feet across that was exploding with ant hills, one solid colony of ants thriving, growing, building, devouring the lawn with ferocity akin to piranhas having lunch. I soaked them with the spray and tried to drench the other spots as well but ran out of chemical.
Do you suppose they will move farther away or just return to the walkway?
Did I win or did I lose – again?
twocentsworth40@hotmail.com