Late Sunday AM, coffee, rcty, etc

Good Sunday Morning, Noreen and All,

It may be a busy day here, or not. My husband mentioned the possibility of going to his company picnic at the local amusement park, but it is supposed to rain all day, so I'm hoping we don't go. If not, I'll probably go to church and grocery shopping, then settle in to knit. I have a baby kimono almost finished.

Have a peaceful day, Joy

Any special reason for that, Noreen? Or is it just your general busy-ness?

Higs, Katherine

WWKIP day next Saturday, upcoming county Fairs, etc! Hugs, Noreen

"YarnWright" skrev i melding news:1pm44s9vo9kx3$. snipped-for-privacy@lalaland.com...

Hello all!

It is Pentacost Sunday, I waked up with a splintering migrene 5.30, was happy that it was NOT work today; I got my medisine and slept to 11.30! I am so happy this is not "tomorrow"!Then my MIL is 80. I cannot remember if I have told you that we are celebrating the day by going by Hurtigruta "Trollfjord"

the Geirangerfiord and back to Ålesund.http://www.geirangerfjorden.net/600%20gjerdefossen.jpg The tour starts 9 in the morning, and we are back about 6 in the afternoon.I hope the weather is better , it's cloudy, foggy and partly rain now!Anyway it will be a nice trip. Her 6 children and 4 of the children in law, will be there.When she was 70, we had a big party with children's families and sisters and brothers. But this time she wanted something more quiet and relaxed. I think it will be a nice day! To all of you: Have a nice day!!!, Hugs and Higs! AUD ;-))

Good Morning all , I hope to have a busy day here , still need to get the troops up and moving first though. We bought a new surround sound system for the family room and I want to rearrange the TV and sitting area so it is used properly. Then later this afternoon we have yard work to tackle , weeding and mowing. I am so glad it is not raining again today. I am working on a commissioned knit sweater lately and have had little time for the projects I had going before I started that one. I think tonight I will sit with one of my own and try to complete a few rows. God Bless and have a great Sunday. Coggie

I guess I had better jump in here before noon! enjoying my last day of 4 days off! but I have found a very large Ant family that came in my kitchen window and I do not wish them to stay on my kitchen counter! Is there an ant problem in other areas this time of year? we get lots of ants coming in the house every spring. Well have a good day, gota go clean out the kitchen!! :) Jenny

What gorgeous scenery for your tour! I hope the fog goes away for you.

BB

I am:

Cussing as I knit the Shaped Triangle from _A Gathering of Lace_. Today marks the beginning of week four and I'm not yet finished with the body. I'm in the fourth chart now with *thinking* 5 right-side rows to go. After I purl back that last plain row I'll put in another lifeline and start the edging. I should be ready to do that by dinner time depending on how the Monopoly tournament progresses.

I'm still: Spinning froghair for a 3-ply yarn that will eventually be a sweater.

I have socks on the needles. I swore I would knit no more socks after my marathon on the CSM when I turned out a dozen pairs in a weekend, but Ineed some JUST PLAIN KNITTING to work on after dinner.

I'm slowly casting on 280 on a 2mm needle using the Channel Island cast on. This will be a sweater, from "5-ply" Bendigo wool that I've had in the stash for a couple of years. I swatch, I swatch, I spend the yarn, and I never actually do anything with it. This won't be a fast sweater, but it'll be lots of knit and purl patterning: I won't be bored, but I won't be going nuts due to lost overs or misplaced decreases.

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Reply to the list as I do not publish an email address to USENET. This practice has cut my spam by more than 95%. Of course, I did have to abandon a perfectly good email account...

Hello All, most of the day is over, it was a busy one here as well. I nearly finished my weekend crossword puzzle, and did same sampling for an upcoming felting workshop for Father's day, with 12 kids making a gift for Dad. I then tried to put a Guild bookmark in 4 columns in Microsoft Word, but since I am not very good with that software, I have totally given up on it. The rest of the day has been cleaning up my weaving room. My daughter and the two grand daughters are coming for 6 weeks, and I better get everything neatly put away. Right now each and every space is covered with some materials. In between,when taking coffe and tea breaks I am reading a great book, Moonshine, by Victoria Clayton, a British author. My daughter bought it the last time she was in England. Wonderful characters, lots of funny details, with a mixture of romance. Good read.

Have a lovely evening

Els

Have a wonderful day tomorrow with out any bad headaches. Lets hope the weather will be good, but on a large boat like that you can still enjoy the ride, inside.

Els

Ah, right! THat time of year again!

Higs, Katherine

In my (limited) experience, the small sugar ants come in as wanderers, but even if they don't find anything, others follow their trail. After you wash their trails off the counter and windowsill, wash down the outside of the house where the trail led up to the sill, and if any plants are touching the house, cut them back so they don't give the ants a free ladder up. Spraying the foundation helps too.

For general information: If they are the really big black carpenter ants, you may have to do some more serious removal work. If they are a swarm of flying ants, they've been around for eight years (it takes that long to build up a swarm; after that they swarm every spring). They still might be coming in from outside as wanderers, but they will chew a nest into solid wood. Any unsolid wood (you can test with an icepick, nail, or very thin screwdriver) must be removed and the nest completely eliminated.

=Tamar

Hi Jenny,

We've had problems with ants, too. Non-toxic things I've read about and tried that didn't work so well includes diatomaceous earth, which is a dry powder that you sprinkle around your house in a perimeter that the ants aren't supposed to cross. If they get into it, they supposedly get their bodies cracked open and they die from it. However, they found a way through or around the powder! Some swear by baby powder for the same thing, but that also didn't work for me. Cinnamon is supposed to be something they hate, but my ants didn't care about it and crossed right over it and used coffee grounds too. I also heard that white vinegar is a good ant deterent, and it worked about 2 weeks, but the downside is it discolored the paint on the house, so I wasn't going to use that again! I tried borax powder mixed in both honey and sugar water to kill the nest, but that didn't work either. Citrus dishsoap diluted with water and sprayed around the outside also didn't work.

We finally had an exterminator come, but it quickly got very expensive, so I started dropping 1/10th the cost of the exterminator ($6 instead of $60) and got 2 cans of Raid Ant and Cockroach spray, the unscented kind as the scented kinds stink to me even worse because it's still poison you are spraying! I put on long pants, gloves, and a dust mask because this "unscented" stuff still stinks something awful to me, and I certainly don't want it on my skin. I cut the weeds down that come in contact with the house and keep them cut down, and then spray all the way around twice, at the very base of the house, and then do another line about 1 foot up. I make sure it's a nice even coat, but not too heavy, and I keep all windows closed and the cooler or AC off for an entire hour afterwards until this stuff is completely dry, like you are supposed to keep them off after the expensive exterminator comes. I do this once a month, and I haven't had any ants inside. If they are close to the house when I start spraying, I can tell you this, it kills on contact. It also kills anything else that happens to be in the spray zone if you get it directly on them, spiders, grasshoppers, flies, anything I've seen when I've been spraying has instantly curled up.

I hate using poison, but I do it early in the morning, and then take my shower immediately after, and put the clothes worn immediately into the wash, and I haven't had any problems myself or with ants since. However, if you get a lot of rain, it will wash off. During our storm season, I have to spray more often, as 3 days after a rain, they can get back in, so I make sure to keep 2 cans on hand at all times in the summer.

HTH.

Leah

On Mon, 05 Jun 2006 06:45:07 -0700, Leah spewed forth :

Diatmomaceous earth consists of fossilized diatoms, or plankton. The little diatoms have sharp edges. These will kill soft-bodied insects if the bugs trundle through the stuff often enough. Hard-bodied bugs have to ingest the diatomaceous earth, which will then cut up their digestive tracts and eventually kill them.

It isn't a repellent, and it isn't a contact-killer like most synthetic bug killer. It must be renewed every few days, too.

Talc is also sharp-edged, but much finer than diatomaceous earth. I can't see it being of any use except to hide the smell of formic acid produced by large ant colonies.

Well, these are organic food items. Of course the ants won't worry about it and I'd be unsurprised to learn they actually carry away coffee grounds. And quite frankly I'd expect either of these items to draw ants.

You aren't supposed to spray the vinegar directly on the house, you're supposed to drench the soil around the foundation, and again I wouldn't expect it to work for more than a day or two until the vinegar evaporates. Of course it discolored the paint - vinegar is acidic.

You want BORIC ACID. BORIC ACID is, again, not a contact-killer. It works by altering the pH in the bugs' guts after it is ingested; this eventually kills the bugs. Most people confuse BORAX (laundry aid) with BORIC ACID (surface disinfectant). They are not the same. BORAX is found in the laundry aisle. BORIC ACID is found at pharmacies; a bottle is 2oz or 4oz and costs less than $5.

What was it supposed to do?

Buy a bottle of green-label AMDRO and sprinkle it around the perimeter of the house. The stuff will kill all sorts of ant colonies and possibly termites (but don't quote me on that): the workers take it back and feed it to the queen; she dies, presto no more colony. We had carpenter ants in our shed last year, we put out two spoonsful of green-label AMDRO and haven't had an ant problem in the shed since then. You should put it out on a dry day after the dew rises and you can expect to see results within 72 hours.

Aggies invented AMDRO (both the red-label version for fireants and the green-label "general ant bait") and while Aggies are shit for roadway designers they're really good at killing things. Their latest improvement to red-label AMDRO is a formulation that claims to kill existing fireant mounds and prevent new ones for up to three (maybe six?) months. I bought a fresh box of the stuff in March when we started seeing ant mounds, sprinkled it around the yard and neither myself nor our immediate neighbors have had any fireants since. The added bonus of AMDRO is that it is non-toxic to mammals unless the kids or animals sit and stuff themselves with the granules. This is unlikely since you need to sprinkle very little around each colony for it to work.

NAYY with AMDRO or Aggies, btw.

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In article , snipped-for-privacy@nowayamigivingitout.com wrote:

WE have an ongoing problem with ants, but what can you expect when you live in the country, we have several huge ant hills. When they start to become a bother in the house or in the garden, I use powdered Borax, I buy at the druggist. I add powered sugar to it, mix it and sprinkle it on the ant trail, or along the edge of the house where I see them. Just as with the diatomaceous earth, the sharp edges of both powders will damage their skeleton (which an ant wears on the outside of it's body) As described below, the ant carries it to its nest and because they constantly touch one and other, passes Borax or diatomaceous earth on to the ant hill members. Do remember it takes patiences, there are millions of ants in one ant hill. When I sprinkled the sugar borax mixture around against the house on our deck I have not see another ant. I know I cannot get rid of an ant hill. (well I pour boiling water over it, but most of the ants are not affected by it and they just pick up, one little stick at the time...LOL and move to a better place.) I can't blame the ants though. They will out live us all by a long shot. When you use Borax or Diatomaceous earth, do be very careful with both. They are not good to inhale or consume in anyway. Keep away from kids and pets as well. There is an ant song in all of this I think. Cher and Katherine, am I correct...or am I mixed up with the black fly song....LOL

Good luck with your ant battle.

Els

You are correct about the carpenter ants and the slightly smaller wood ants (they have a red abdomen) however you do have to have rot in your house first. Ant, and termites were not put on this earth to eat our houses, or to be a bother to us. They are the cleaner uppers of the forest...LOL Old rotten trees and vegetable matter get recycled that way. When you have problems with your gutters, and get water damage in the roof of walls of your house, or as we have had recently a dumb woodpecker starts to make a hole in the cedar siding of your house, that is when the problems start. Rain comes in, and other little animals, and that is the beginning of the end.

In Toronto it was termites, we found in our wooden fence, where the fence posts had rotted away. With the help of UOT where they were experimenting with natural defences to get rid of termites, we got rid of them again. They used a natural material indeed like a Borax or diatomaceous earth. This was put into rolled up corrugated cardboard. These were dropped into the ground in the garden where the termites were spotted. Once a week students came and picked up the rolls. Counted termites in their lab and brought fresh rolls back with the new anti termite stuff added plus some of the old termites as well. After a month or so the termites were gone. We also had a shield put in the ground all around our house that was done by the city and with poisons allowed by the city. Termites are a terrible problem in Toronto, but with this new UOT study things are looking up.

Good luck with getting rid of your ant or any other insect that is a problem....There are many about...LOL

Els Who is now going outside to clean up bamboo that is taking over a corner of my garden, Borax will not help here, just good old muscle power has to do. EvD

Hi all, thanks for ALL the tips on ants, I really hate them , years ago (many years ago) I was drinking a soda outside and about half way done -yeah you know where this is going- the bottle had ants in it. I think I washed my mouth with mouthwash about 6 times a day for weeks after!! now I have a very clean kitchen, so far no ants, I did have a can of ant spray I used on the outside of the window . I guess wanting to have all the windows open now I have to deal with what ever decides to crawl in!!! Thanks, Jenny

Best way to get rid of Ants ,,, Peel cocumbers , and put the peels in their route ,,,,,, they just HATE that ,,, mirjam