Interesting pictures, but if you want to get rid of your intruders just sprinkle your bottle of cayenne pepper in your garden patch. The fire ants and spiders will move, not die, and ya'll can get started gardening. By the way, make sure it is a big bottle.
Thanks, Wisteria. I'll give that a try if a few days of heavy watering doesn't drive them away.
Now - we have serious problems with fire ants here. Our dogs have had to make several emergency vet trips due to bites - and both my husband and myself have been bitten as well. Now – it’s bad enough that we have to treat the lawn every year - and then spot treat any mounds that appear until the weather gets cold enough to drive them underground. But those little buggers seem to be immortal – we never seem to be completely free of them. It does make gardening difficult - all these nasty, uninvited critters. Oh and the snakes? Got 'em. You're welcome to a few, if you'd like! Everybody is! We actually sulphered the place last year to 'encourage' them to hightail it back into the woods.
TFLS -- Did the sulphur work? I just chase snakes when I find them in my yard. Makes me look like an idiot, but we're finding fewer this year. We're near a creek so I think they'll always be around.
Fun tidbit from my days as an active Master Gardener. I once attended a fire-ant seminar and the speaker told us those little devils can tunnel underground for several hundred feet between mounds, which might explain why getting rid of them is a no-win proposition. If you bait your property, they'll just go next door -- and then come back when the bait's gone. Grrrr.
We borrowed some chickens a while back but I couldn't figure out how to keep them safe without having the dogs penned up all the time. Perhaps it's worth some more thought.
Yes, actually - the sulpher did work; but the place smelled like hell and damnation for about a week. If you do decide to go that route - keep out of the yard for a couple of days afterward. The sulpher pisses the snakes off no end. You have to let them get the fuck out of Dodge unmolested (which means leaving them an escape route. You can get it later.)
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