Along with blooming flowers, budding trees, and returning bees, spring brings to our home unwelcome visitors; ants! Those tiny creatures find their way onto my kitchen counter every year. They drive me crazy and give me the creeps. No matter how diligent we are about keeping the counter and sink clear of crumbs and food debris, I spend a few weeks every spring battling them. We used to have a pest control guy come in and spray but that didn’t stop the problem so we stopped that. I have tried all kinds of old time recipes to wage war on them. We have put pepper, cinnamon, chili powder and mint leaves in their paths. I read that bay leaves dipped in mouthwash might work too. We have offered them meals of oatmeal, grits and rice. I have heard that they won’t cross chalk lines, but they haven’t met our invaders.  They just find our weakest front and go around. We know for sure that window cleaner stops them dead, but only the ones you see. We now keep it on the counter for a quick annihilation of the varmints. My counters should be shining. After doing some more research, the kids and I have been experimenting with other remedies. We learned that if you spread petroleum jelly in their paths they won’t cross it. We tortured a few ants by making petroleum jelly circles around them and it seemed to work. So we took off the plug plates where we have seen them coming and going and smeared the petroleum jelly around it. I sure hope this works.

Whenever I wake up to the counter filled with black dots moving all over, I think about the time when I was first married and we lived in a third floor apartment. I came home from work and opened the door to be welcomed to the entire floor covered with them. No lie. Just about the whole kitchen floor was a moving black mass. I totally freaked out and refused to go back into the apartment until the landlord had got rid of them all. He cleaned them out, but they kept returning. He finally had to cut down the tree that was beside our porch which was how they were getting up to our apartment. Problem solved, but as long as we lived there I always looked in the window before opening the door.

Proverbs 6:6-8
Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.