termites and pumpkin fungus

Today a termite inspector told us that he's seen five subterranean termite colonies on an acre of land around here, so besides being a great place to be a mourning dove, this is a great place to be a termite. Anyway, you can kill termites with a nicotine solution 1/1000th as concentrated as Frontline, which people put on their pets to kill fleas. (I don't think chemically sensitive people do that, but I haven't asked.) The termites get the solution on their feet and track it back to the nest, and roughly four days later they all croak.

The upshot here is that this poison is pretty dilute and it's going underground outside, and I think it'll be ok. If I'm wrong, well, that'll be interesting, too.

In other news, mold in Illinois is wreaking havoc on the pumpkin crop, which is going to mess up Halloween. So it's not just me; mold really is evil.