On 9/5/2017 7:33 PM, Terry Coombs wrote:
On 9/5/2017 5:02 PM, Muggles wrote:
On 9/5/2017 11:25 AM, George Shirley wrote:
On 9/5/2017 10:43 AM, Derald wrote:
George Shirley wrote:

Those of you out there that don't have fire ants consider yourselves
blessed. We're in the progress of pouring boiling water down our
biggest
pest in the gardens home.
Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*I've dealt with fire ants for 40+ years; good luck with that hot
water down the hole bs.Â* Just as with ground-nesting wasps, gasoline
and
fire work well but, unlike the wasps, surviving ants will re-establish
nets elsewhere.Â* In 20 years of "due diligence" at this place, I've got
them down to a few small outbreaks each year.Â* Of course, since this
land was "cleared" 60-70 years ago, it may be that nesting sites
(decaying subterranean wood, e.g. tree roots) have diminished but I
credit Amdro, IME, the only ant specific insecticide that works on
them.
Amdro is "fire and specific" only because many other types of ants
won't
eat the bait but those that do die.Â* Like the boiling water, any other
product that I've tried simply disperses them, resulting in a host of
satellite mounds, often at significant distance from the original
problem site.Â* They're a major pain but at least they're more easily
controlled than grasshoppers and locusts.
Â*Â*Â*Â*Â*Having said that, I must confess that a fragment of the familiar
colony persists (and has done for years) in and under the timber
retaining walls of one garden bed and I have the scars to prove it.Â* I
don't use any "chemicals" in the garden and I know of no predators or
pathology that'll take the little *******s out so I just deal with
****ed off ants injecting fire into my feet and lower legs several
times
each year.Â* I can't guess whether or for how long the toxin remains in
an AWG's body but I'm sure to be loaded.Â* It is possible to use the
ants' behavior pattern and tribal reaction to threats to minimize the
damage to ones self but I'm not telling.

I was raised in Orange County, Texas, where so it is said, that foreign
fire ants first came ashore. They finally found us after several years
at the old home place, right after I got out of the USN and married,
about 1961 if memory, very old memory, works. Here we have five feet of
gumbo clay under two inches of sand for our front and back yards. The
fire ants come up sporadically in the spring, usually by our raised bed
gardens. Right where, if you're working the garden, you get bitten.
Don't want the amdro or other things there as the plants pick it up too.
The boiling water, two pots full, are to kill the queens, generally the
rest of the ants, less queens, generally just die off as I have seen
before. Now we're waiting for two things, if the ants all die we got the
queens; if they start moving out, they've still got at least one queen
and they're all moving next door. Suits me.
Our poor dog has been covered up with fleas this summer.Â* We've treated
the yard where she roams, treated her with Advantax several times, and
evidently it has quit working altogether.Â* Next, we tried flea baths
with a flea collar, and no luck, either.Â* She ended up scratching and
biting herself so much she has very little fur on her tail, butt, and
parts of her legs.Â* We finally called the vet. He had a stronger flea
killer that is a pill. One was to kill all the fleas on her in 24 hours,
and the other is one pill a month. We have 3 months worth of it.

Our son suggested we bath her in dawn dish soap because it is gentle and
also kills fleas, so he did that this past Saturday.Â* He also suggested
we put out bowls of dawn water around the house as a trap for any indoor
fleas.Â* Speaking of which, we also treated the indoors for fleas too.

A week later from her original vet treatment, I don't see any fleas on
her body now, just the occasionally one that gets on her paws when being
outside.Â* Evidently, the indoor treatment is working, too, because we've
caught some fleas in the bowls, but really not too many. Initially, we
caught like 4 or 5 fleas in different parts of the house, and now we're
only catching 1 or 2 new fleas a day.

The vet said that everyone is having horrible problems with fleas around
here.Â* We didn't have much of a cold winter last year, so I guess that's
why.Â* Is anyone else having flea problems?


Â* It's been a bad summer for fleas and ticks both out here in The Holler
. I use frontline plus on Max , he still has a few fleas but not nearly
as bad as it could be . I spray his blanket (actually a handmade afghan
but I won't tell if you don't ...) regularly to keep it from getting
infested . Our house doesn't have carpet for them to hide in , a bonus .

AH! I can finally post again. (holds breath)

We are still battling the fleas, but it's not too bad, now. The dog is
still scratching from her skin healing up, so she has to wear the cone
of shame until her skin stops driving her bonkers. I have been giving
her benedryl tablets, like her vet recommended, and it seems to help some.


--
Maggie