Ants Marching!

A huge problem in Florida are fire ants.  Fire ants are a variety of stinging ants, and oh do they sting!  If you're unlucky enough to step onto an ant hill, the ants can swarm up your leg in seconds and do some serious damage.  They can also critically injure or even kill a small animal. 

Very cute small animal owned by author

So you can imagine, that having fire ant hills makes me quite nervous. 

Ants are some of the most industrious insects in existence.  Almost overnight, a huge ant hill can pop up. 

One of many huge ant hills that popped up overnight.

Luckily, from much experience, I always have some very powerful ant hill killer on hand that will take care of this. 

Very powerful ant hill killer

The theory is that you sprinkle the very powerful ant hill killer on the hill and the ants will eat the powerful ant hill killer and bring it back to the queen who will then drop dead.  The ant hill will then just be washed away by the next rain or by the wind.

Ant hill sprinkled with very powerful ant hill killer.

In my world of course, the ants just become annoyed and move a few feet down and start a new ant hill the next day.  It becomes a battle that can never be won. 

Many people have told me home remedies for ant hills.  I was told to pour boiling water on an active hill.  I boiled the water, carefully carried it outside, poured it on the hill and absolutely nothing happened.  I also was told to pour vinegar on a hill.  This was really scary.  When I poured the vinegar the ants went crazy and left the hill and starting chasing me. 

We also have enough frogs and geckos around that should be feasting on all the ants and mosquitos.  But the frogs that hang around my house seem to have other things to do.

Sleeping frog couldn't care less about ants.

So in conclusion, just like the weeds, the ants seem to have won the battles so far.  But the war is still on!

Palm Balls...What Are They Good For?

Absolutely nothing! 

For those of you who might not know what palm balls are, they grow in grapelike clusters on palm trees.

You can see a cluster of palm balls under the leaves on the
left side of the tree.

A better view

The palm balls themselves are hard, hazlenut type of "balls" that fall off the tree and dent the hood of my car, cause me to trip down the driveway, and cause palm fronds to grow in places that palm fronds shouldn't grow.

Palm Balls growing on small palm tree.

Palm fronds growing from ground around palm tree.

These fronds are as useful as weeds and just add to the vast variety I already have to clear away. 

I am sure though, that sometime at about 3 in the morning, on my roof, I can hear the squirrels having what seems to be a tennis match using the palm balls.  The U.S Open has nothing on us!