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Rodent Proofing Your Home

The best way to control mice and rats is to make it impossible for them to enter your home. That can be difficult with mice because they can pass through an opening only 3/8 inch thick. In general, all openings greater than ¼ inch thick should be sealed for rats.

Check all openings around utility lines that enter your home, around service conduits such as water pipes, electric wires, airconditioning units, drain pipes and vents should all be sealed. Also check for broken windows and unscreened vents. Vents should be covered with metal grillwork backed by rust-resistant screening. Roofs should be checks to see that shingles are down tight and sheathing is complete.

Check roof ventilators, screen vents and in-wall vents. Make sure you check under sinks where pipes enter the wall. This is a great area for mice and rats to enter your home or business. Copper mesh stuffing, course steel wool, sheet metal, hardware cloth and mortar can be used to seal the spaces around these areas. Just use your imagination.

These are probably not all the areas that mice and rats can enter your home but do cover most all of them. Like I said above, just use your imagination and remember to cover all small holes and cracks. One more thing. If you are using steel wool, it does rust. Make sure you don’t use it around areas that may get wet. Copper mesh stuffing works best. It doesn’t rust.

Fire Ants: A Problem All Year Long
Mila Sidman
The red imported fire ant is a pest to fruit growers throughout the United States, but they are equally aggravating to homeowners as well. Fire ants are more often a pest during the warm summer months, but red imported fire ants can be a problem all year long. Fire ant colonies are active all year, although cold winter temperatures slow them down and drive them deeper into the soil.

Believe it our not, fall is the best time to treat fire ants. Fire ants need moisture to survive which is why you often find them in well watered yards and in athletic fields during the dry seasons of summer. During spring, the ants emerge from their deep refuge to search for a fresh food supply for a growing colony. During the fall, the temperatures are cooler, it rains more often, and the ants have to find their food supply for winter, so they are out and much more active.

The winter colony
Fire ants are not as noticeable in winter as they are during the summer months, but that doesn’t mean they are gone. Actually, they have dug a little deeper and are spending much of their time under ground. Fire ants are less active during the winter months, but during days when the temperatures rise, the ants often emerge for a breath of fresh air. They may also build up their mound after a hard rain. During winter, fire ants often take advantage of solar radiation by building their mounds against concrete and asphalt structures such as foundations, parking pads, parking lots, sidewalks, and along curbs. The solar radiation allows the worker ants and other active members of the colony to stay closer to the ground surface. The hybrid form of fire ants (those species from the red or back imported fire ants) are thought to be more cold tolerant than either parent species.

The spring colony
During the spring months, ants are very active in the warm, humid air. They can often be found in plant beds, grass, and compost piles. During the spring, the queen lays as many as 800 eggs per day. The worker ants spend their time foraging for food to feed the new colony members. As the colony grows, so does the mound and the number of workers foraging for food.

The summer colony
During summer, fire ants like to build their mounds in beautiful landscaped yards that are sunny and are mowed and watered regularly. They build their nest in vegetable gardens, in flower gardens and flower pots, and near other plants that are watered and care for. People caring for plants often run into the ants and fall victim to ant bites. During the hot dry summer, the ants may disappear leaving only their mound as evidence of their existence. However, once the temperatures cool down and it rains a little, the fire ants and new mounds will be apparent.

The fall colony
During the fall, ants tend to forage for food that will carry them through the cold months. While the weather is still warm, the worker ants are hard at work carrying food down into the mound to sustain the colony during winter. The fire ants venture further away from the mound as food sources become harder to find and they often come in contact with people. The mounds also rise above the ground in preparation of winter.

All-weather treatment plan
During the summer, fire ants like to eat fruits and high protein oily foods; however, during winter their preference changes. Therefore, the treatment you use to rid your property of the pests must change as well. Because the ants don’t venture far from the mound during winter, a mound treatment or spot treating a mound is effective.

The weather should determine what treatment you use. During the summer you should drench the mound on a cool, sunny morning while the ants are concentrated near the soil surface. Later in the day and during hot, dry weather, the ants retreat deep into the mound where the insecticide is less likely to reach them. During the winter months, baits are ineffective because ants forage for food when temperatures are above 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

The fall months are actually a great time to apply baits. Broadcasting bait across the property using a seed or fertilizer spreader works great at full coverage. Once the bait is down, the worker ants find the bait that they think is food and they carry it down into the nest, deep in the soil. The bait takes longer, but it is effective. It may take the entire winter to kill the mound, but you will have fewer ant mounds during the following spring to worry about.

When the weather grows colder, it may appear you have no fire ants at all; however, during warm spells of temperatures reaching at least 60 degrees, the ants can become active. Because ants live in their mounds at different levels and forge for food depending on the temperatures, you have to treat the mounds differently. Ants just love warm comfortable weather and your treatment of the mound should reflect their habits.

For more information on fire ant control, please visit www.pestproductsonline.com.

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Joke Center
These sentences actually appeared in church bulletins or were announced at church services.

The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals.

The sermon this morning: "Jesus Walks on the Water." The sermon tonight: "Searching for Jesus."

Our youth basketball team is back in action Wednesday at 8 PM in the recreation hall. Come out and watch us kill Christ the King.

Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands.

The peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been canceled due to a conflict.

Remember in prayer the many that are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say "Hell" to someone who doesn't care much about you.

Don't let worry kill you off -- let the Church help.

Miss Charlene Mason sang "I will not pass this way again," giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.

For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.

Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.

The Rector will preach his farewell message after which the choir will sing: "Break Forth Into Joy."

Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.

A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow

At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What Is Hell?" Come early and listen to our choir practice.

Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.

Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.

Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered.

The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility.

Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM - prayer and medication to follow.

The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.

This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.

Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 AM. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B. S. is done.

The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.

Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the back door.

The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare's Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.

Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance.

The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new tithing campaign slogan last Sunday: "I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours".