Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 8, 1993                   TAG: 9306080028
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SHE REALLY MAKES THE CAKE

You'll recall that Pam and I picked some berries side by side on Thursday, and during our conversation - well, mostly me talking - she described an astounding strawberry cake she planned to fix for her family.

I jokingly asked if I could share some, and Pam agreed to give me a slab of her cake.

She left the strawberry patch without telling me where she lives, and in print on Friday I chided her for reneging on the cake offer.

Lo, on Monday, Pam Bolling delivered to me the most satisfying strawberry cake ever assembled. Shortcake, pineapple, bananas, whipped topping, chilled and topped with fresh strawberries.

"It's really better when it sits overnight," said Pam. "Everything soaks together."

Alas, I cannot vouch for that. The Bolling Strawberry Extravaganza didn't survive the night; or the afternoon; or the half-hour.

It was delicious, Pam. You are my hero.

Friday's storms were savage, and they left a lot of people claiming they'd been hit by tornadoes.

But as National Weather Service investigators based in Roanoke sifted through piles of tornado claims on Monday, they had no proof that there were any twisters touching down.

The storm that rolled in on a forest green sky will be recorded instead as a series of particularly ferocious thunderstorms.

Hit hard by the winds was the Mill Mountain Zoo, a vulnerable site 1,000 feet above downtown Roanoke and facing west.

Seven mature trees fell on the zoo grounds, shattering a section of the year-old viewing platform at the tiger exhibit, flattening about 65 feet of fencing around the zoo perimeter and blocking the main entrance.

A team of volunteers, armed with chain saws, cleared most of the larger trunks by Sunday.

Fire ants, the nasty little import from South America that can simultaneously bite you and sting you, have long been a problem in the Deep South.

Bites can easily become infected, the ants can actually kill young animals, and can savage crops in a short while.

Fire ants had, until recently, been found only in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. But a colony of the aggressive, mean-spirited ants was found on Nancy Cleary's front yard on Castle Rock Road in Roanoke County.

The ants hitchhiked into our area in the root ball of an azalea plant.

Bill Zimmerman of the state Agriculture Department visited Cleary's lawn in April, and baited the fire ant nest with poison.

He went back a couple of weeks later and repeated the treatment. He returned a third time.

Zimmerman said Monday the poison seemed to work. The fire ants, which can quickly establish a beachhead and expand their territory, appear to have perished.

"It looks good for now," said Zimmerman. "But there's nothing like Mother Nature to make a liar out of you."