Good tip

I got an email from a friend today. It's full of good tips.

We live a rainy part of the country. When it rains a lot, the clay that makes up most of the soil around here gets too wet for the ants, and they move into your house. It doesn't matter how clean or dirty your house is - you can have a spotless kitchen counter, and fly dies on your windowsill and now there's a line of black going from the dead fly to whatever hole in the wall the ants found their way out of.

Trevor's way of handling the ants is to "draw" circles around them with the liquid dish detergent. This uses up a lot of detergent. And the ants are still alive, just stuck in the circle. Until you wipe them up. Ew.

Diana likes the foam soap pump better. At least that way you don't have to look as much at the dead ant bodies.

My personal favorite way to get rid of ants was shown to me by my cousin Ekki from Germany. He used his lighter on a line of ants on a tree while we were at a park. They just froze there - burned to a crisp. But we can't do that in the kitchen without causing damage to my counters.

So here's the tip: Put some cornmeal where you notice ants coming in. They will take the cornmeal to their nest, but they can't digest it. So when they eat it, it kills them. Ta da!

Maybe it gets stuck in the 'node.'

For any that take issue with my attitude toward ants - hey, I pay the mortgage. Freeloaders of species other than human or dog will be terminated.