Friday, January 17, 2020

Argentine Ants?? and Rain

Location: Liberty Hill Campground (Corps of Engineers); Dawson, Texas (between Corsicana and Waco)

again, the pictures are an assortment between Pixel or Lumia cell phone and Nikon camera
Click pictures to enlarge

This is Stop #2
Today is day three at this campground and tomorrow is moving day. It was a very short tow of only an hour to get here. It was raining when I left and has been doing that misting/light rain/occasionally heavy rain since I got here. A cold front is suppose to pass through tonight and push all of this dreary weather on to the southeast. After that, it should be clear and a little cooler. 

The purpose for stopping here was to visit a local museum. It is the Pearce Museum located on the Navarro College campus. It is actually three museums in one. They have one each on the pre-history of Texas, old Western art and fancy art. All for $6.00. I've been to a lot of museums around the country and I would rank this one a little above average. I did see some new type of art I had never seen before. It is called "scratch art" or "scratchboard art". That was interesting and I would like to see more of it. Very intricate work.

Argentine Ants!!!! I first heard of them last year when I was looking into a campground south of Dallas. On the reservation page, there was a warning that the campground had several locations of Argentine Ants and campers were warned to be prepared in case they infested their RV. Well, that warning was enough for me to look for a different campground. I never heard of them again until I started reading the fine print on the reservation confirmation email from this campground. The email gives you directions to the campground and other standard stuff. However, when I read the finer print for this campground, they mentioned those Argentine Ants. They advised campers to place poison around their wheels, landing gear, electric cables, water lines, etc. I called the Corp office for advice and they said there wasn't any special type of poison. They were still trying to find out what worked the best. I stopped at Walmart on my way here and looked their poisons over to see if any mentioned Argentine Ants. Nope, none mentioned them, so I picked up some fire ant poison. When I got to my campsite, I didn't see any ant hills so I didn't put out the poison. I talked with another camper who was local and he said the ants are mostly dormant right now due to the weather and rain. I checked online and apparently the magic temperature is 50 degrees. They should have mentioned the ants boldly on their reservation page. If they had, I wouldn't have stopped here. We will see if I have any stowaways when I pull out tomorrow. I've been keeping a close eye and so far, so good. 

The rest of this post will be some pictures from around the campground. I was able to wander around between the rain. It was cold and windy a lot of the time.
This is the campsite picture. No ants in site, so far.

These bare trees are all over the campground. Some are short and twisted and others are full and rounded like this one. I haven't found out the name of them yet. Maybe some type of Elm? I bet that is a favorite picnic location during the summer. 

A thinking bench in the museum. All those drawers are filled with arrowheads. A lot of them.

A pair of thinking benches at the end of a peninsula jutting into the lake. 

How about a floating bench? The waves had it rocking and rolling.

Lastly, what I think is a Great Blue Heron. The little ponytail of black feathers on the back of the head means he is a male heron. The guy was standing alone, looking out across the lake. I wonder what he was thinking about? 
Ya'll take care of each other. I'll Cya down the road.


8 comments:

  1. So far the Argentine ants have been easy to clear out of the trailer. I have found the Terro Liquid Ant Bait to work well inside. I get them each time I stop at Martin Creek Lake State Park near Tatum Texas going to/from Alabama. They are a bit of a nuisance. Safe travels and have fun.

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    1. I've used Terro Liquid Ant Bait before on ants in the RV. Mostly they were what I call "piss ants" or "sugar ants". It works really good and takes care of the problem. The way people were talking, these Argentine Ants were something special and to be feared. I'm glad to hear they are just normal ants with a new name. Be safe when you head out.

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  2. Yeah those ants sound like a problem, too bad as it's a lovely park. I really like the thinking benches out by the lake! The bench out on the floating dock looks nice too, if the weather was better! Love these COE parks.

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    1. The benches just keep popping up in front of me. lol. Yep, COE's are top of my list. Be safe out west.

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  3. "A non-toxic way to eradicate these ants is by dusting the trails, feeding sites and nest entrances with diatomaceous earth, if the problem is inside the home use food grade earth."

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    1. I've never tried that product but Terro works really good. Once you see a trail of ants someone inside, you just place one of the liquid baits near the trail. They will find the bait and take it back to the nest, where ever that may be. Within 48 hours, ants are gone. I haven't tried it on Argentine Ants since I haven't had them as house guests.

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  4. Cornmeal -- if you see a trail of ants -- sprinkle a little cornmeal there and in a day or so you will have no ants -- this works for all kinds of ants----The weather is just not cooperating with you is it?? We have had 60-70 degrees here in TN but it is supposed to get colder -- I am leaving tomorrow for WA state and N Idaho - lets hope it is not too snowy and cold

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  5. Hello Jenny, I've tried the cornmeal trick on fire ants. They treated it like a buffet and kept on living. The best thing I've found for inside ants is Terro, but I was lucky and didn't pick up any of the Argentine Ants. Be safe on your trip out west and have fun.

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