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Carpenter Ant(Genus Camponotus)
APPEARANCE: Among the largest ants, from one-fourth to three-eighths inch long; most common species are black, but some have reddish or yellowish coloration; workers have large mandibles.
HABITS: Normally nest in dead portions of standing trees, stumps or logs, or burrow under fallen logs or stones; invade homes in search of food; nests inside homes can do great damage; hollow out "galleries" in wood that are so smooth they appear to be sandpapered.
DIET: Do not eat wood; will feed on nearly anything people eat, particularly sweets and meats; also feed on other insects.
REPRODUCTION: Queen lays fifteen to twenty eggs the first year, and up to thirty eggs the second year; eggs complete their life cycle in about sixty days; worker ants can live up to seven years, while a queen may live up to twenty-five years.
OTHER INFORMATION: All kinds of houses, regardless of age or type of construction, are vulnerable to infestation and damage by carpenter ants; very difficult to control; colonies can contain up to three thousand workers.

how to stop ants

Use diatomaceous earth, found at your local hardware or home improvement store, around the foundation of your house. Also known as diatomite, diatomaceous earth is a naturally-occurring stone that breaks into a fine powder. The powder causes ants to dehydrate when they come in contact with it, and then they die.

Use petroleum jelly inside of cracks, cervices, and holes. The ants cannot penetrate the jelly.\nMeasure the perimeter of your home and use that length of yarn, soaked in lemon juice, cinnamon oil, or peppermint oil, to tuck at the base of your home. Once you've tucked the yarn solidly to your foundation, reapply the juice or oil. Ants usually will not cross anything soaked with those foodstuffs.

Sprinkle coffee grounds around the entire perimeter of your house. Ants hate the scent of coffee.

Other scents that ants hate are sage, catnip, mint, cucumber peel, white pepper, and bay leaves. Use any or all of those ingredients to place around your home, on window ledges, around doorways, and on porches and patios to keep ants away from your house.

If you find where the ants are entering your house, place a pie pan full of powdered laundry detergent next to the entrance. The ants will carry the soap back to the colony, moisture may expand the soap, and then cause damage to or destroy the nest entirely.

how to stop ants

Some of the most effective natural remedies to keep ants out of your house can be found in your kitchen. Ants will crawl away from cinnamon, mint, red chili powder, and black pepper. All of them can be sprinkled on countertops or cupboards, as they're not poisonous and highly effective. Planting mint and cloves in windowsills or outdoor gardens around the home will also help keep ants out of your house. Bay leaves, especially when dipped into mint mouthwash and placed around the food pantry, are another helpful option.

Creating a ring of Vaseline or chalk around windows and doors also helps, as ants will not cross lines draw with any of these products. While this may not help you get rid of the ants already present in your home, it will certainly discourage other ones to join the invasion. Baby powder is another great ant repellent. Sprinkling some on doors will keep ants out of your house.

Ants also hate vinegar. For an easy solution, just mix equal parts of vinegar and water and then sprinkle on counters and other food storage and preparation areas. If there are no small children or pets in the house, you can also use glass cleaner to spray areas in other rooms outside of the kitchen.

how to stop ants

Repel ants from your home naturally. Ants are repelled by mint, citrus, cloves and bay leaves. Clean your kitchen and bathroom with vinegar, which has the same acid as citrus. Wipe down surfaces with peppermint or citrus oil. You can also plant mint plants around the foundation of your home to stop them from entering.
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Find the point of entry and block it. A wall of baby powder placed where the ants are coming in prevents most of them from entering. If they do find their way over the wall of the powder, the powder covers their scent trail so they can't find their way back out.

how to stop ants

Mr. Winter said it’s the soy lecithin in the spray that causes that stickiness. Instead, he recommends just using oil or a spray called Baker’s Joy that doesn’t contain soy lecithin.

For due diligence, I checked in with DuPont, the makers of Teflon, and a spokeswoman said in an e-mail that “it is acceptable” to use nonstick cooking sprays although “not necessary.” And a spokesman at ConAgra Foods, which makes PAM, said, “You should check with your cookware manufacturer” to see if it is safe to use with PAM.

Another thing I shouldn’t have done is put the griddle on a high heat. High temperatures cause the coating to crack, Mr. Winter said, and don’t even cook the food as well. The food tends to be partly burned and partly doughy, he said.

“Using a lower heat means it will turn out perfectly,” he said.

Also, don’t use any metal or sharp objects to stir or turn food, because it can pierce the coating.

Now as far as cleaning, I did scrub with a plastic scrubby sponge (never steel wool). Then I soaked with baking powder and hot water. Then I used some vinegar and water. It looks better, but not perfect.

how to teflon pans cookig

Ingredients for Riesling Brine from Martha Stewart Living, November 2008:

-7 quarts water (28 cups)
-1 1/2 cups kosher salt
-6 bay leaves
-2 tablespoons whole coriander seeds
-1 tablespoon dried juniper berries
-2 tablespoons whole black peppercorns
-1 tablespoon fennel seeds
-1 teaspoon black or brown mustard seeds
-1 fresh whole turkey (18-20 pounds) patted dry, neck and giblets reserved for stock, liver for stuffing
-1 bottle dry Riesling
-2 medium onions, thinly sliced
-6 garlic cloves, crushed
-1 bunch fresh thyme

turkey how to brine

After doing my research, I'm convinced spatchcocking is the way to go. Say wha? Spatchcocking? It involves butterflying the bird, removing its backbone and breaking the breastbone so it lies flat. The breast meat turns out very tender, the drumsticks are juicy and flavorful, and the entire thing is done in half the time.

Just use a large roasting pan with a flat rack instead of a v-shaped rack.Better yet you can just place the turkey on large chunks of aromatics/mirepoix (onions, celery & carrots) & herbs (or potatoes maybe) and use them as a rack to keep the bird from sitting in drippings. Add a little stock to keep them from burning at roasting temps. They'll be useless after they've roasted for long, but strain them out & deglaze the pan and you have some delicious strong stock for gravy

I remove the backbone first, then brined the poultry. --- Makes it a lot easier to handle - more area is exposed to the brine - and it took up a lot less space with the turkey being flat. No turning involved.

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