Cinnamon – Sweetener of Goods & Destroyer of Ants

Just as all the Fall clothing catalogues showing people happily wearing fleece pullovers and knee-high boots arrive at my house, so does Summer.  Finally, while the rest of you have been baking in heat wave after heat wave, the thermometer cracked 80+ degrees here in the Pacific Northwest.  With the glorious heat and sunshine though also comes ants…

I just got back from a morning run to find my spotless countertops swarming in a moving mass of the industrious critters.  Trust me, I knew that this is when they tend to make an appearance so I had cleaned those countertops to a shine last night but still something caught their attention and they were doing their best to find it.  I desperately searched for some ant traps but came up empty-handed so I turned to the next best thing….cinnamon.

Cinnamon, I remembered once reading, is a natural ant repellent.  Apparently it burns them so they’ll steer clear at all costs.  I may not have ant traps in the house but I certainly have cinnamon (several different kinds in fact) so my counters are now dusted with cinnamon and, truthfully, the house smells rather nice!