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Wes and I spent this weekend killing things, some intentionally and some unintentionally. We killed a lot of ants, and unfortunately we also seem to have killed a bush in our yard.

The bush was the first project of the afternoon, and honestly even if we knew what was going to happen, I'm not sure we would have done anything differently.  We have quite a few tall, blooming bushes in the yard, and I did cut them pretty heavily back this spring, but evidently not enough.  As Wes puts it, they are a victim of their own success.  Many of them are getting so top heavy that they bend over in the yard. This one bush has fallen over several times.  There were lots of branches sticking up at the roots, with all the blooming branches towards the front.  So the whole thing just kept leaning heavily and blocking our access to the front gate.  Wes knows not to transplant in the sumer, but it was either that or just rip it out permanently.  So he (and Ollie) dug it out, deepened the hole, and then replanted it so that the root base settled more firmly in the hole.  I held it in place so that the dirt helped lean it back and bury it more properly.  When he was done, it looked great.  A few hours later, that bush looked sad.  Really sad.  Wes watered it, a lot.  That night, it looked dead.  And it still does.  We're not sure if we should tear it out and put in something new next spring (Wes wants to cover the window on the neighbor's house) or leave it and see if it bounces back.

We were more successful with the ants, or so it seems thus far.  We've had problems with ants in our kitchen since we moved in last year.  They got worse with rain.  We've sprayed Ortho Home Defense in the kitchen, the cabinets, sometimes on the counters, outside the house, and even in the basement repeatedly over the past year, but the ants always came back.  We've been able to keep the cabinets clear this year, but the counters, sinks, dishwasher, and even trash were often overrun with them.  My sister-in-law recently recommended this other product, Terro, a liquid bait system, so we decided to give it a try.  Wes put the baits around the kitchen, and that night, we even put one on the table.  Wes decided to smear some honey on the table to attract the ants, and we went to bed.  In the morning, there were ants all over one of the baits on the counter, and there were lots of ants on the table -- eating the honey.  I wiped the honey off and left the bait, and Ollie and I had breakfast on the child's table upstairs in the nursery.  Within a half an hour, the ants were all over the bait on the table.  We left it there for a day since we were out all day, then heavily cleaned the table and floor next to it the next day before eating there again.  The ants are still visiting the bait on the counter, but we haven't seen any anywhere else in the kitchen.  It's hard to know how long we'll have to leave the bait out and, once it's put away, if they'll stay gone.

For now, Wes and I are retiring our license to kill.