How to outsmart those pesky ants

Well, not only do the Baltimore Orioles and Goldfinches know where to come to get some Concord grape jelly, the word had got around the local ant colony also. All of a sudden our patio table had been overrun by ants, which were on their way to the jelly plate. The birds didn’t seem to mind, but I did.

 

Benno used a spare piece of white “Starboard” plastic that we had leftover from our boating days. It’s a type of polymer plastic that doesn’t fade outdoors even in tropical sun and he fabricated a kind of a saucer and cup that mounted onto a plastic coaster purchased from our famous “Canadian Tire” store chain. That coaster we hung with strings from the top of the gazebo. The birds seem to like this new dish as it swings back and forth above the table and the ants can’t get to it. When I said he “fabricated” I have to mention that he used his lathe and tools in his shop to make me this unique feeding bowl. It is priceless let me tell you!!!

 

It has been a hot summer here that is for sure and the last rain we had must have been three weeks ago. Our lawn is totally brown and dried out but today it started to rain and it looks like we will have a few wet days ahead. We don’t mind but it puts a damper on the outdoor activities that had been planned for this long weekend here in Canada. Actually, we had planned on a little trip with our travel trailer beginning of next week, so may have to delay for a day or two. The destination will be revealed when we get there :-)

 

However, in preparation for the outing we have to turn the trailer around to pull it out of the driveway. There is not enough room for the truck to hitch up so we usually use the little power dolly to do that, but this time Benno hitched up our new Kioti tractor for this job. We had a custom made, removable hitch ball bracket welded up, bolted to the front of the tractor. With the tractor Benno pushed our trailer with ease out of the driveway and turned it around within minutes. Easy-peasy this time around.

 In my past post I mentioned that this year I don’t have as many flowers in the garden. It is true but the ones I do have give me joy to look at. I had a package of  Nasturtium seeds that I threw along the back wall of the garage, as there is hardly any good soil to grow anything. To my amazement those seeds have developed into a little jungle of leaves and multiple colorful flowers (they are edible) and in front of it are the pots with the tomatoes, peppers and zucchini. We’ve eaten several meals of peppers and zucchini and almost every day a salad with our cherry tomatoes added. I think I will plant those again next year.  I haven’t seen any more of these huge caterpillars, but this Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly has been around on most of my flowers. 

In lieu of flowers I added garden art that I painted

Oh, and I almost forgot to show a picture of the completed installation of the garden arbor. It was a bit of work to dig out the holes for the pressure treaded 2x4 posts, which slip into the arbor, that were then cemented into the ground and the holes were filled in with sand and topped off with gravel. We need some grass sods for the lawn but there is none to be bought right now, so it has to wait.

 

Until next time, stay tuned to our little trip.