Ants on fire

          This is a kind of silly post, but if you know me,  I have a fear of ants, and that means this is serious business.  Basically, I was in a car accident one time and ended up covered in ants.   I had about 300 ant bites.  Yes, it was terrible.  But I also had a concussion, so the bites were not a huge deal.  However, the feeling of ants crawling on you (sorry, if you now feel ghost ants on you, I do) is horrible.  If there are several ants on me at once I freak out.  I can't handle that. 

((I was going to post a picture here of the bites, but lucky for you, I can't find any.  Also, you don't want to see that. I looked up pictures of ant bites and well, it's nasty.   This is Zazzle the friendly ant, popular in parts of Australia, found by me on Google))

Anyways....

Our lovely new home came with a rather large yard.  It's somewhere at 1/3 to 1/2 an acre. [When Daniel mows it, he swears its an acre. ;)  ] So in the heights of August there were several MASSIVE ant hills in our yard.   We tried ant killers and that just caused the hills to move locations.  We tried corn meal/grits.  Nothing worked.  So having a pinch of GA redneck in our blood we decided to burn those suckers out. It was pretty fun. 

 

While Daniel was inside painting ceilings or something I went outside with the old oil/gas mixture from changing the oil/gas out on the lawnmower.  I poured it on the mounds and then lit it on fire.  I did use a long handled lighter.   My parents were there and so my dad came outside to "supervise," although I think he had more fun than I did.  :)

Notice the smoke billowing out of the hole that  I made to our the gas/oil in.  It was really cool to watch, although difficult to capture in my picture.

We let them burn for several minutes before we doused them with water.  We also watched over them carefully.  As you can see these were in the middle of the grass, not in the woods or in the mulched garden area. The grass didn't catch fire because it was green and actively growing.  However, when the fire got close to edges I poured water around the edge to give it extra protection.  

**note:  I do consider myself a responsible adult.  Having two people however, is advisable.  Have a hose handy and make sure you aren't burning near pinestraw or any very dry grass.  Also, a no-brainer but don't try this close to the house.  Be smart people.**  

So, has anyone ever tried something like this? Do you have any helpful hints for getting rid of ants?  I am sure we will have more this year!  I want to make sure we can play safe in our yard with our dog!  Let me know your tips and tricks in the comments!  

Love,

Sarah