@Dawn's Meta I haven't tried cinnamon here, but a client brought me some to the office when an ant bed showed up right at the base of the wheelchair ramp. It didn't work, so I resorted to commercial poison, which did work. But in a kitchen? No way!
I do have some hydrogen peroxide, might try that tonight. As for the discomfort, the bites hurt for about 10 minutes, but a tiny anti-histamine pill will stop in in 5. The swelling and redness in the middle of the bite,the collection of pus at the center, is unsightly and sore to the touch, doesn't require any meds. I read that extruding the pus leaves a puncture in one's skin that invites more infection. It does recede in a week or so.
My day, like yesterday, has been unexpectedly busy. Still, i squeezed in two vids: Maher was spot on, Turley was spot on.
France is run by a government to inept to define "assembly". Not much better here, chica!
It will be Sunday morn when you read this comment. Hopefully, you will be having some coffee and a croissant, mon cher.
I am watching a very young doe graze out in the pasture. When I made some noise raising the window shade, she raised her head and tail. I waived my hand "hello", and she immediately started grazing again.
I can't say it enough: It is the little things that give us joy that make us want to keep on living.
Btw, the left party doesn't quite get what "left" means, methinks...
Enjoy your Sunday and the week ahead, friend!

what we've used here for ants and put something at the end of my comment.

This expanding wave of punishing people for saying what they think on any side of Charlie Kirk's murder is a bad and scary development. When these things start we think we're talking about the other guys. But as Robespierre found out, it can come back to bite you (or severe your head from your shoulders).

I found a few things this week that addressed my concerns way better than my puny words. Here is Jonathan Turley, who used to opine on MSMBC for Rachel Maddow. He is a conservative, but I find his legal arguments compelling and spot on. His reasoning on the constitution and the first amendment resonated with me.

The clips from Bill Maher's Real Time this week posted by Vigilant Fox on Substack also seem concisely on point.
Bill Maher hits the nail on the head.

And here in France many are exercising the right to assemble. Not sure how much free speech and the right to assemble are protected here in spite of "Fraternité"

About your ants: Diatamaceous Earth can help but moisture is not its friend. Also it's low impact. You can use it in your house though. We get ours from Amazon. Last year we actually sent away for Nematodes and they were surprisingly effective. There are species which predate ants.

We had some come back this year so I sprayed 15-20% Hydrogen Peroxide where they were coming into the kitchen and into the office. Then I went outside with it and sprayed where I thought they were coming from. It worked better than I expected and after a week no mas.

Sprinkling ground spices like clove and cinnamon is also helpful.

For your welts which I assume are terribly miserable, an 80% spray of DMSO can take the sting or itch out of many types of bites. We buy ours on Amazon. 99% pure (It crystalizes under 68°f) so it needs a bit of dilution. The stuff has some remarkable qualities for pain, but it also works on bug bites.

I'm like a madwoman: running around my pantry sprinkling full strength Peppermint oil to keep mice away from service entrances and in storage drawers. They hate peppermint (menthe peperita). Then sprinkling ground cinnamon along the baseboard areas in our bedroom to keep away fleas brought in by our bon chien (dog). During dry periods I sprinkled DE (diatomaceous earth) on the aggregate terrasse on the front of our house especially in front of doors for fleas and ants. It made me feel better and we had fewer but not sure it had anything to do with DE.

Bonne chance et bonne courage as they say here.

@ban nock What part of the country do you live? Good luck with the trees. Live long enough to see them grow, ok?
Dems are hateful to Rs, especially when in control, then vice versa.
I just have a major concern about censorship and criminality. If my employee was being an ass online, I would set parameters. The consideration would and should me mine, and mine alone, not the gummint.
My secretary had a Trump bumper on her vehicle which people could see. I wanted to say something, but I live in a red county, so in the grand scheme of things, it didn't matter. I didn't like it, nobody else cared.
If an essential employee was spouting off idiocy on the social media that actually hurt my business, that employee would be replaced.
All that said, it is not essential for me to like an employee, or agree with the, as the essential is the bottom line. Gummint can butt out, and the 1st Am did once guarantee that.
My Dad gave me my shot gun and deer rifle, and my late hubby gave me my pistol. I used to be a crack shot, but I need to practice. I will get around to that when it gets cooler here.
Have a fun evening and fun Sunday, Bn!

who pisses on the grave etc. I've known people who have committed war crimes, pissing on graves is mild. The only part that brings smiles to me is the payback for all of the mob action when the shoe was on the other foot.

Construction here has slowed from it's frantic pace to simply busy. At current wage levels we need a bunch of houses for about a hundred thousand, most people seem to not make much money.

I would probably been able to say Kirk was someone in politics, wouldn't have been able to say what side of things he was on, as many here know I give short shrift to extremists. Bondi's comments on 1A were an echo of the Democratic vice presidential candidate during the last election. Many don't understand you can say just about anything, then again many don't realize you can also get fired, they just can't keep you from speaking but they can fire you.

Waste of a good deer rifle which will never be used again. Mauser does make modern rifles though I'm not sure which model it was. They have cheap ones for $700 like everyone else, after that prices jump to $1,500 and a couple three thousand.

Just bought a bunch of trees. Four red maple clones, four Ginella Maples, a couple of the hybred Ginellas that grow more tree like and turn very red, four clumps of aspen, three to a clump, mostly eight of nine feet tall, trunks an inch or so. I guess buying trees when I'm pushing 70 is being optimistic.

Tech market on fire.

Regardless, extremists don't determine elections, moderate vote switchers do, and here in America we vote.