A way to stop Ants

Ak!

I may have written a while back about the ant problem we've been having in our new home. It's been a battle all summer long trying to get them away from the house. A few weeks ago when Rob was taking the concrete tiles from the front of the house (he's building a proper stone walkway) we found this HUGE nest right against the foundation.

Well! After a summer of lemon juice and cucumber peels on my counter (that actually worked by the way) I said ENOUGH and had him spray some serious poison into the nest.

The ants went away for a while (or so it seemed). Yesterday I was outside having an afternoon cup of Java on the front porch... and what did I see? Those pesky ants on my block foundation again! A few months ago it was suggested to me by one of my neighbors, that I try using Chalk. Apparently if you use chalk (just regular old sidewalk chalk), the ants wont cross the line. (I don't use poisons by the way and Rob is not available, so I thought I'd give it another whirl).

I was AMAZED! I ran a chalk line to test and the ants would not cross! Here's a photo just so you can really see it for yourself. The ants just walk around all confused and wont cross the chalk line!

Now they don't stop the ants from "eventually" getting to their nest but they do slow down the process quite a bit. There is no way that I can go all the way around my brick house every day putting hop scotch lines everywhere. There is, of course, the issue of the ants that are in the nest trying to get out.

For the moment, I feel vindicated just slowing the little buggers down.

I thought this might help someone else with an ant problem.

Blah! Blown up Rock Tumbler

ARGGGGGGGG......

I just checked one of our rock tumblers in the shop out back... arg arg arg... we've got an old Thumblers Tumbler that we usually use for tumbling rough rocks (when the other tumblers are full).. yesterday I noticed that it was leaking a bit from the sides where the rubber ring sits.. which at that point was nothing new.

But this morning?

The lid has this HUGE hold in the center with the edges torn open. Almost as if something blew up inside the tumbler barrel itself and left a huge 1 inch gap in the center of the lid. It's odd because there is nothing that this part of the tumbler touches.

Arg.. inside this tumbler was a wonderful batch of white Quartz (from our area - Nepewassi Lake). So it's going to be sitting and waiting for some time until the other tumblers are free.

On the good side of things? It looks as if my rain barrels are going to get filled as its starting to cloud over. Our gardens will like that.