Sunday, July 06, 2008, 05:34
The Ant Experiment
I haven't figured out why -- but our kitchen has been invaded by black ants. They are everywhere. One night while I was making supper, I must have killed 20 of them around the stove. And they just keep coming.
Saturday morning, I may just have discovered the solution to getting rid of these little pesky buggers.
It all started when I was mixing up Isabelle's horse feed. Every other day, I give her an aspirin bolus mixed with her feed to control heat in her hind hock joint.
Isabelle's hock has had a slight swelling since we got her. I have tried (under the advice of a veterinarian) various antibiotic treatments, but the swelling is still there, and during the summer, especially, the joint gets warm. It doesn't seem to bother her, but if I give her an aspirin bolus every other day, the swelling stays down to a minimum and the joint stays cool.
When we got Isabelle, I could see wire scars along her withers and her back and her rear end. Under the right conditions, even now, I can see the scars. I think the hock swelling may be related to whatever happened to her that caused the wire scars.
Anyway, I put the aspirin bolus in water and leave it on the cupboard so it will dissolve. Because we have curious kittens and young cats in the house, I keep the little half pint jar with the dissolving aspirin covered with a small dish so the cats won't be tempted to drink the water. (I don't know why water in a half pint jar seems so attractive to them, but it is.)
When I took the dish off of Isabelle's aspirin Saturday morning, that's when I made my discovery.
A half dozen black ants were floating around in the water, and all were quite dead. For some reason, the ants were attracted to the water with aspirin. The half pint jar sits all the way across the kitchen from where I see most of the ants, so those six had to travel a ways to get there.
And that started me thinking. Could I make an "ant trap" with aspirin?
I found a small custard cup in the cupboard, filled it half full with water, dropped in three regular aspirins and a couple of teaspoons of sugar -- and I covered the whole thing with a small dish so the cats couldn't get into it and taste the water.
By Saturday evening, the little custard dish was full of dead ants. Full!
I am hoping this means I have discovered a safe, nontoxic way to trap ants that really works. I'd much rather use something like that than spraying some type of chemical around to kill the ants.
I know the ants have as much right to live their lives as anything else. It's just that I don't want them to live their lives in my kitchen. There's something disconcerting about your counter top being alive with ants. . .
LeAnn R. Ralph
Wednesday, July 02, 2008, 06:03
The Coffee Grounds Experiment
I am trying an experiment in the garden. I've been saving coffee grounds for quite a while. We had enough coffee grounds for a few rows of sweet corn when we planted the garden this spring. I put a teaspoon of grounds in the bottom of the hole and then put the sweet corn seed right on top of the coffee grounds.
I can tell the difference in the corn. The sweet corn plants that got the coffee grounds are a darker green than the others.
I am also trying an experiment with the coffee grounds to see if it will keep the deer from eating the giant sunflower stems down to the ground.
Along the end of the garden, the deer kept nipping at the sunflowers until there is only a half inch of stem left above the ground.
The other row in the middle of the garden wasn't eaten down that far, and in fact, there are a few plants left on the north side of the garden.
Tuesday evening, after I got home from covering a village board meeting for the newspaper, I carried the five-quart pail of coffee grounds I had saved up again down to the garden. I used a trowel and sprinkled coffee grounds around the giant sunflower stems and the few plants that are remaining. I am hoping the smell of the coffee will make the deer think twice about chewing the stems off down to the ground.
I don't know if they will -- but I am hoping the sunflower stems will generate leaves again. Earlier this spring, the grass had grown up around my peony plant, and I could not tell if there were any sprouts. So I mowed off the grass. And after I did, I could see there had, indeed, been peony sprouts. Quite large ones.
I am happy to see the peony came back, and it is blooming right now.
It is very late around here for peonies to be blooming, but my peony is not the only one blooming. My sister-in-law's peonies are blooming too. Usually peonies bloom at the end of May. Not the end of June and into July. It's an indication, I think, of the long cold winter and the long cold spring.
Since the peony came back so nicely, I think it might be possible that the sunflowers will come back. Time will tell. Now, as long as we don't get an early frost, they might be able to mature, too. That's *if* they are able to come back.
As for the rest of the garden, we've been eating some radishes and onions. I planted cherry bell radishes. They are supposed to stay sweet no matter how big they get, and they are not supposed to turn woody. I planted the "seed tapes."
I have to say I am not particularly impressed with the seed tapes. Only part of the row of radishes sprouted. And the carrots and beets are extremely sparse. I'd say less than half the carrots sprouted, and only about 1/3 of the beets sprouted.
The seed tapes were expensive, too -- almost $4 per packet, more than twice as much as a package of seed. I won't be using the seed tapes again. I will plant seeds the old-fashioned way after this: one at a time.
LeAnn R. Ralph