chomiji: Hakkai from Saiyuki, in a hooded parka. Animated snowflakes fall; caption is A hazy shade of winter (Hakkai - snow)
chomiji ([personal profile] chomiji) wrote2010-02-02 08:10 pm
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Ants and Snow Do Not Belong on the Same Page

I mean, WTF? I'm used to having ants in the kitchen in the spring and in the fall. It's one of the prices you pay for living in a cool old house in a neighborhood where lots of the homeowners are passionate about not using gobs of pesticides in their yards.

But ants in February? While the snow is pelting down? Nuh-uh. What are these, special cold-resistant Boreal ants imported from Canada?

D-:

And while we're at it, WTF snow again??? And more in Friday night? The National Weather Service is not usually confidant enough to say 90% chance of snow this far ahead of time - but that's what they're saying!

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snarp: small cute androgynous android crossing arms and looking very serious (Default)

[personal profile] snarp 2010-02-03 01:14 am (UTC)(link)
There are ants here, too - but not in the kitchen, in the bathroom. I can't figure out why they're interested! Maybe there's some organic shampoo squirreled away someplace that they're eating?
chomiji: Cartoon of chomiji in the style of the Powerpuff Girls (koumyou - hero)

[personal profile] chomiji 2010-02-04 03:53 am (UTC)(link)

We get ants in our bathroom too, although not right now, thank goodness. They have to climb about 3 stories to get there, because of the way our lot slopes. I sometimes wonder if the artificial sweetener in the toothpaste fools them into thinking they've found sugar ... .)

inkstone: small blue flowers resting on a wooden board (Default)

[personal profile] inkstone 2010-02-03 01:54 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah, I don't even know what to tell you about this weather.
chomiji: Sanzo from Saiyuki, firing his gun. Caption: Losing faith in humanity, one idiot at a time (Sanzo - humanity)

[personal profile] chomiji 2010-02-04 03:53 am (UTC)(link)

Have you looked at the satellite images of the approaching storm? Scary!

[identity profile] fmanalyst.livejournal.com 2010-02-03 02:01 am (UTC)(link)
I'm so sick of the snow, and I'm a few hours south of you! I was sliding home in the middle of the day today. I've had two of my 8 am classes canceled due to a delayed opening. I hardly know my students. And no one will come shovel for me. I want spring, right now.
chomiji: Cartoon of chomiji in the style of the Powerpuff Girls (hishigi - flowers)

[personal profile] chomiji 2010-02-04 03:57 am (UTC)(link)

Wow, no wandering college students in search of an extra 10 bucks to be made shoveling?

I want spring too! I saw some snowdrops blooming just the other day ... .

[identity profile] lauand.livejournal.com 2010-02-03 10:41 am (UTC)(link)
Summer, where are you?? I miss you so...
chomiji: Cartoon of chomiji in the style of the Powerpuff Girls (Yuki)

[personal profile] chomiji 2010-02-05 12:27 pm (UTC)(link)

We've got a really huge storm bearing down on us now, with forecasts of DOOM for the weekend ... like, as much as 2 feet (60 cm) of snow.

[identity profile] avierra.livejournal.com 2010-02-03 11:43 am (UTC)(link)
We've had ant problems too. I think it is because the ground is really wet and driving them out before their time.

My cats like playing with them though.
chomiji: Dr. Kou, with the caption I am alone with the beating of my heart (kou - alone)

[personal profile] chomiji 2010-02-05 12:29 pm (UTC)(link)

Does your cat actually eat the ants? These are those teensy "sugar ants."

Anyway, they've mostly gone now. I put cinnamon on the floor around where they were coming up onto the counters and then put a poison bait where they seemed to be coming out of the woodwork. There haven't been anymore on the counter for a couple of days.

[identity profile] avierra.livejournal.com 2010-02-06 03:02 am (UTC)(link)
Well, we had two different sizes, the teeny ones, which they like to chase, and the bigger ones which they do eat for some reason. D: You'd think they'd get stung, but if they do, it doesn't seem to bother them.

I never heard of using cinnamon. I have been kind of afraid to use anything poisonous, but cinnamon is definitely doable.
chomiji: Goku from Saiyuki, looking confused. Caption: Huh? (Goku - huh?)

[personal profile] chomiji 2010-02-06 03:07 am (UTC)(link)

Cinnamon doesn't kill them, but it messes up their scent-tracking, so they can't follow the scent trail they've laid down to the food source anymore.

It should be fairly fresh cinnamon. Cinnamon oil makes much less of a mess, but it's harder to find.

You'll see them running around wildly and frantically trying to clean the scent off their antennae when they get close to it. It used to make me feel mean when I was younger, but I've become hard-hearted in my old age.

[identity profile] nouvellebrielle.livejournal.com 2010-02-03 05:45 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm so sick of ants in infested Singapore that it was a nice change to not have seen that many (if any) in the UK. But that being said, your super-resistant ants sound diabolical. Maybe you could sneak some spray?

And the snow. ): Winter is not nice, although more than snow, I really really hate the ice on the ground that comes later on. And sludge. Which is just disgusting.
chomiji: Cartoon of chomiji in the style of the Powerpuff Girls (Yuletide - windchild)

[personal profile] chomiji 2010-02-05 12:33 pm (UTC)(link)

I usually use poison bait on ants. Spray stuff gets into the air, and the place where the ants seem to be coming out of the woodwork along the floor is close enough to where our rabbits live that I wouldn't want to risk it. But the bait is self-contained - basically a covered plastic dish with some sugar-and-peanut-butter ant food laced with poison, and little holes for the ants to crawl in. They take the food back to their nest and feed it to everybody ... .

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