DE isn't harmful to the lungs unless you make a point of fluffing it into a cloud and then inhaling it. DE from fresh-water sources (Food grade) is less irritating to the lungs than DE from salt-water sources. You can use one of those common dust masks if you want. I've used DE on our version of the fire ant, the thatch ant. I tried everything I could think of: boiling water, vinegar, bleach, poisoned sugar water, poisoned meat. I got a pound of DE and sprinkled it over the mounds. It slowed them down, but didn't stop them. Then I found a fifty-pound bag of DE for $15 and got it. Since DE is quite light, it's a BIG bag. I took a 3-lb coffee can and coated the mounds with DE half an inch thick. If it didn't penetrate their carapace, by golly, I was gonna make 'em CHOKE on it! Well, I guess I had put it on thick enough (!) so all the ants were forced to wade through it and take it into the nest area to the queen. It got them, and they haven't come back. And I see no mounds anywhere else, either (in the past, I had annoyed them so they moved). The stuff is cheap, and non-toxic to earthworms, bees, pets and kids. It's safe to eat, and it even contains trace amounts of desirable minerals. It works by sucking the moisture from the insects' bodies, including fleas and cockroaches. If you looked at DE under a microscope, you would swear you were looking at sharp shards of glass. Some information says it takes one to three days to kill the insects. DE only works when it is dry. And because it acts physically, not chemically, the insects can't become resistant to it. To make sure you're getting the non-toxic kind, make sure it says something like CODEX FOOD GRADE. Call around to your local farm supply stores -- some of them should carry it, as farmers like to mix it with grain and feed it to their livestock, as it's also supposed to help keep flies down. NEVER get the kind that is mixed with an insecticide, or the kind that is used for swimming pool filters. Stick to the food grade kind. Sue

florah, Fire ant mounds usually are just that- large, flat-on-top mounds that have multiple small openings. Yes, the ants usually have some red on them and are not as fast as the native ants. The native ants can have some red on them too, but make volcano-shaped mounds with a larger, single opening. They are faster. They don't sting in any way. Once you see both types, then you will always recognize them. Hey, just send your DH out there at night. Tree, we truly are like-minded in more ways than I even imagined. Yes, such a pity to waste perfectly good resources. Especially when you can use the same to multi-task! Just went out to check the areas this morning, and the ants have gone away completely. Much better than Amdro, etc.

Slowly, over time, they are adapting to colder weather. When we bought our first house in Texas in 1984, they were already there in the Fort Worth-Dallas area, but the general consensus was they couldn't survive further north than the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area. Here we are 25 years later, and they have traveled much further north than the Dallas-Fort Worth area. I expect that, in the next 20-25 years, they'll make it to northern Oklahoma. Armadilloes, by the way, are also adapting to colder weather and are increasingly found in northeastern states where they've not been known to live previously. I think fire ants will always be with us. They are horrible here in Love County. I mostly manage them with organic techniques, but once every three or four years they seem especially bad and then I break down a buy a chemical product that has proven to be very effective for us called "Come And Get It". I think I last used "Come and Get It" in 2006. Some of our neighbors have also had success with a newer chemical product called "Over and Out", but I haven't tried that one. You can't use these chemical fire ant products around food crops though, so when fire ants get out of hand in the veggie garden or under the fruit trees, I use an organic spinosad-based product. Diane, the first few years we were here, scorpions got us all the time. I completely stopped wearing any shoe that had open heels or open hoes (no sandals!) for 5 or 6 years because the scorpions would get me every single time I stepped out of the house in shoes like that. The last few years, though, I've hardly seen any scorpions and I don't think one has bitten me since about 2003 or 2004. I don't know, nor care, where they went, but I hope they stay there. I finally started wearing flip-flops, sandals and open-toed shoes occasionally although only if I am just passing through the yard on my way to the car. I still can't wear sandals around the yard or garden because of all the venomous snakes, but I wear them to town. Dawn

Amdro is perfectly safe to use with newly planted things. Remember, Amdro does not 'attack' ants, it attracts them. It is a toxin laced bait, that when sprinkled in SMALL amount near where the ants are living or working, will entice them into taking the little bits down into their nest. It is then fed to larvae who in turn feed it to everyone else, including (eventually) the queen. Amdro, when used correctly, does not stay on top of the ground for very long, and begins doing the job within a very short time. It is an effective method of controlling a fairly wide range of ant species without applying a bunch of broad spectrum pesticides. Ants love a newly disturbed soil. Whether or not you have enough of them to create air pockets within the root system of your plants is something you have to decide. Ant, for the most part, play an important role in our backyard ecosystems. An over abundance, however, can cause problems. I don't think you have to worry about fire ants in NJ, do you? ;-)