I live east of Raleigh and have found the only way to control ants is to patience.

From the tone of you post you are looking for a quick fix, but when you
kill a mound in your yard, the ants from surrounding properties move in
and take the territory. The first year we were here there were dozen of mounds. Now 5 years later we still get some but the humongous mounds have disappeared. We still get some but each time we find one we treat it as described below.

We have two kinds of ants. Fire ants and what I call turnpike ants for the way they create little troughs through the yard. Some go for 50 to 60 feet.

There are two parts to our solution. For the first one I bought a bundle of the little orange flags use by the electric company to mark under ground wires. I carry these on the riding lawn mower and as I mow over an ants nest I place a little flag on the mound.

After I am done mowing we go around to all of the flags and treat the ants with a generic Amdro.

Thanks for the advice. When we moved into the house, the previous owner had seeded heavily with rye. I spreaded weed and feed and lime around March. Then I spreaded green spring max around mid May. By the end of June, all of the Rye had died and I was left with very little fescue, wild Bermuda, and weeds. So for that reason, I have not watered. I just over seeded about 11 days ago and we have had tons of rain. However, after that I am not sure how I am going to water 3/4 of an acre without an irrigation system. I have not figured that part out yet.

I had the fescue at my old house looking fairly good and mowed high, not the highset but 2 knotched below it. I'm looking to have tall fescue, if I can ever get rid of the weeds. I sprayed weed b gone with a pull behind sprayer about 7 weeks ago. It got rid of a lot of the weeds, maybe 3/4 of them. I didn't spray a second round because I wanted to seed this fall.

There has been no shade in the back yard since the house was built. I planted 12 trees 3 weeks ago to get some shade in the future.

Thanks for the advice krnuttle. So basically you are saying that I need to get my yard up to par and slowly treat the hill one by one?

You could use your spray rig for watering too, just takes a while. Sun & fescue are not the best of friends, I might suggest a tri-mix. Rye dies off pretty quick in the heat so you need a stronger grass to fill in those spots. Where do you live?

That is a good idea with the spray rig. Seems like the most practical way. I guess I would spay right after I cut, right? I live about 30 minutes south east of Charlotte, NC

Based on what I see out of my windows east of Raleigh this afternoon, I would suspect that water is not a problem with your yard.

I used to live on an acre lot in South Texas. The grass was St Augustine, which dies without water, so it needed water to keep going. Parts of the lawn had broken sprinkler system, and had to get reestablished. Fortunately St Aug will reestablish itself, unlike fescue. About all I had to do was water and wait, so I had put 7 hoses and oscillator sprinklers onto my 4 spigots (with some doublers) and watered whenever the grass in certain areas needed it. Basically I abandoned all the in-ground watering and did it all by hose.

But in your situation, you'll have weeds if you do that. With the size of your lot I would do it in pieces of about 1-2 thousand square feet at a time. Fall is the best time to seed cool season grasses, but it can be done in early spring (Feb or March at the latest). If you go later you will have weeds by July.

Also, don't fertilizer in March (or April). Fertilize at the beginning and end of fall (when the grass stops growing), and fertilize again in late May. If you want to use a preemergent herbicide, do that in March or April. When the first wild flowers or the forsythia are starting to bloom, that is the time for preem.