Fire ants make mounds and not holes. The mounds start out small and become larger as the colony population increases. These mounds look rather innocent until you disturb them, and ALL of the ants boil out of the mound all at once. Again, there is never a discernible hole. I never worry about ants in my yard and garden, other than fire ants. Fire ants can be a problem for humans, pets, bird nests, beneficial insect eggs and larvae, and such.

Hi zep516, How did you know beanwabr was infected with Palladium Pro? I could not find out any info about this from beanwabr. You said my link leaded to a possible infected web site? I can tell you that this site (teesupport.com) is safe. I know this because this site keeps posting blogs (http://blog.teesupport.com/) for virus removal and legit applications uninstall instructions each day. Teesupport starts its blogs for over one year and some of blogs are even listed on the top search on Google. I do not think Google will allow sites that will damage your computer to exist for such a long time. I have also tested this site using online anti-virus scanners from various security vendors and all test show that it is a safe site. What is more, as far as I know, TeeSupport is an online company to provide remote tech support and they receive payment via PayPal or Safe Cart. Will a virus maker dare to receive payment via PayPal or Safe Cart? Talking about spam..There is a very interesting thing. See two latest posts from two different sites here: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/remove-master-utilities http://www.citruscomputers.com/2011/09/01/remove-master-utilities-uninstall-guide/ "Your computer should now be free of the Master Utilities program. If your current anti-virus solution let this infection through, you may want to consider purchasing the PRO version of Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware to protect against these types of threats in the future." -- This is the bleeping computer site that you won't doubt. I know bleeping computer site very well and I like it so much as you guys and I just want to list an example here to support my opinion. So far, I don't think there is any pure site without promoting anything. My principal is to choose info that I need and ignore the unwanted info on the internet. If a site does not force you to buy anything in an illegal way like rogue software and it can provide you some useful info, then that is not a bad site. By the way, I admit that sometimes I will buy things from the internet because of those sites' promotion but I don't think it is bad because they provide useful things to me and I think they deserve my payment for hard work of making such useful things. Enjoy the internet! Regards, Alan_hoicns

The common yellow oxalis we have here has tiny "bulbules" (sp?), which lurk 12 -18 inches under the ground. You can easily pull up the plants, of course, but those tiny bulb things stay under the soil, and up it comes again. I once had a gardener who decided to eradicate it from a flower bed which is about 12 feet long and 6 feet wide. He actually dug up the top 2 feet of soil, and sifted it by hand to get all of the tiny bulbs out. That worked for the first year, but by 2-3 years after he did that, back the oxalis came. So, being lazy, what I do is just admire it in the Spring, except where it is trying to smother other plants. Then just pull it out around those plants. By late Spring here it has died down, and I pretend it is gone. Of course, it comes up again the next Spring. It is one of our first blooming plants to bloom (starts Jan/Feb), so I just regard it as such and let it be mostly. One of my cats likes to eat it (we used to eat it as children - we called it "sour grass"). Jackie

First mistake is leaving your garbage outside and unsecured. You wouldn't do that in bear country and be surprised that you've got bears hanging around the house? Having smelly food garbage out attracts all sorts of animals. If you live in an urban or suburban area, you're going to have raccoons around. That they were living in the neighbors shed is not really the problem...there will be others nearby regardless. Yes, raccoons enjoy corn. Short of building a complete enclosure around your corn, you are going to have an issue with them. They also have good memories and learn from each other. So, unless you plan to take a multi-year hiatus from growing corn, you will have issues. After a few years, you may have success unless a raccoon stumbles by chance into your yard (the cycle will then start over).