Fire Ants - OH NO!

So I have come to the ultimate conclusion, that I have to eradicate the Fire Ant nest. I guess my pacifism can only go so far? My older son was bit earlier today, and my younger son has had a severe allergic reaction we suspect from an insect bite. The yard is large. I do not really want them just moving a few yards away. What to do?!
This much is true - they must go. I will take another trip over to Farmer D's and maybe try out Mosquito Barrier if I can find it.
Feeling good that I got my tomatoes transplanted into our new garden. Planted some cucumbers, beans, and rainbow chard. They are just peeking through the earth. Let's hope they thrive. This is my first foray into growing vegetables from seed. Woohoo! N, is so happy to see the rainbow chard turn pink :).

Yellow Jackets safely removed!

This week was exciting for many reasons, but the number one highlight for my family this week was a visit from a Georgia Tech professor, named Michael Goodisman. We have been doing our best not to kill insects in our home (mosquitos are still another story!) by keeping the house quite clean and taking all unwanted visitors outside. I am getting quite good at capturing flies. Even the baby is running around with a plastic container, saying "mama, fly!"This made the discovery of the yellow jacket nest in my garden heart wrenching. I knew they had to go, but my options were limited. All of them would result in the destruction of the nest. I spent one week trying to come up with the most green/ sustainable option, since they were in my garden but all of them still left me with a fear of being chased by angry yellow jackets.
I searched the internet  for  days hoping to find an answer and low behold - it showed up in the form of an article written in 2008 by a professor who studies the social behavior of yellow jackets. I unfortunately missed the excitement, but my husband and sons witnessed quite a show! They put the hive to sleep with ether and using a shovel removed the nest. They showed my family the queen and the grubs and the workers. And now my yellow jackets are living, in a lab, perhaps, but not eradicated and serving a purpose.
Here is a video about the Goodisman team and yellow jackets.
If you would like more information, go here.

Happiness is a tumbling composter.

I am trying to be green. Every day. But I can fully disclose that having moved as much as we have, there are have been many moments when there was not enough time to recycle, reuse and repurpose. But today is a red letter day. Today we officially started composting. I have tried before, but always just ended up with a freezer full of food scraps. The open outdoor bins were never my style, since I have often lived in areas near water and am afraid of rats. My indoor bins just smelled.  I thought about a worm factory and fantasized about the Nature Mill. I do have to admit that although I can be brave I can totally wimp out when it comes to "ickiness." But I have started my weeding out my garden and I cannot wait for three months to pass and actually have compost to add to my soil! While weeding I got stung by a yellow jacket, which led me to discover a large nest in ground at the edge of my garden. We have been taking great strides not to kill the insects in our house, and instead take them out. It caused me great stress to think that I might have to destroy the hive. But low and behold, after a little research I discovered that a Georgia Tech professor will come to my home and remove the hive so that they can study their social interaction. hen I went and killed some flies at my Mom's house. Felt bad, but we were totally outnumbered. Promise you flies, if you use restraint coming into the house I will use restraint with my Mom's flyswatter!