Dead Bodies Everywhere

I have to admit the weather in California has been pretty epic since I arrived.  75-80 degrees during the day and 45 at night.  Obviously my blooms think it's pretty epic also.  My carpet roses are coming out and showing off their beautiful blooms.

A little tall for carpet roses you say?  Well yes, you are right.  When I had the back yard planted, I wanted to be able to see the horses over the fence.  I asked the landscape/gardener guy to plant carpet roses along the entire edge.  He did a fabulous job until a year later when the roses grew taller than the fence.  

The only good thing about that is they actually smell like roses, something I don't seem to find much nowadays.  I think they have developed roses to be pretty, but with no beautiful scent.

The NOT SO PRETTY part is where the roses end and the fire ants begin.  I went out to check my Amdro handiwork to find them happily hauling sand out of the holes, one tiny grain of sand at a time, and setting up housekeeping again.  Those dirty rats!!!

In fact, they were actually grabbing the Amdro and hauling each tiny piece out with the grains of sand.  Of course that killed that one, but no worries, there are thousands more to take his place.  

I ran for the house and got a big bottle of bleach.  THIS should do the trick.  I carefully poured an entire bottle down their little ant holes while hundreds scurried to the surface.  DIE DIE DIE.  Sorry, I got carried away!!

Anyway, it worked somewhat because they too died.  Even more fascinating was when I found a huge pile of dead bodies off to one side.  Apparently they had removed one body after another and piled them up.  I felt quite the satisfaction as I spotted more and more very dead little ants.

BUT ..... it was not enough.  The WAR WAS ON!!!  The very next afternoon there they were, hundreds coming and going hauling dead bodies out of the hole and dumping them in this pile.  THIS time I grabbed the Home Defense killer spray.  It's all I had left for a weapon.

I carefully poured 3/4 of the gallon down the holes, flooding everything.  To be honest, I doubt even THAT is going to get rid of them.  I was at least hoping they would get tired of the killing and find a new hole way out in the corral.  

I'll check again this morning.  If this doesn't work, I suppose I'll have to call the County and see if they have anything I can use.  

In the meantime, I've purchased a little gizzy for the fifth wheel ... actually TWO little gizzies ... which I'll report on tomorrow.  Anything to make life easier when it comes to keeping that fridge running when not plugged in.  

I'm off to count dead bodies .........