Tuesday 26 August 2014

Making mountains out of anthills

We have an ant problem.

 I had a bad day when I was weeding the garden before I planted in June.* I dug up approximately six gazillion ant eggs and baby ants, which creeped me right out. Luckily, I was wearing gloves. And I had a shovel, a bucket, and a burning hot driveway. A small bit of me felt bad, but the rest just felt twitchy, itchy, and ready to stop weeding for at least the rest of the day.

Our clothesline, which I love, goes from our deck to a post in the back corner of our yard, just in front of our big boulder, which I call Pride Rock. There's a gorgeous lilac tree that's grown up around the post, and it is home to -- and I'm just estimating, here -- another four gazillion ants. They are super lucky to have our clothesline, which doubles as an Ant Highway between the tree and our deck. It's great, because not only can they have fun while I'm hanging/taking down the laundry (if you pluck the line at just the right time, the ants go ptoink, off into the air somewhere) (it's super fun!) (I should find a hobby), but also, at least 5 of the little buggers smuggle themselves into the house in the laundry basket, little stowaways inside wee little sockies and cute little shirts.

 Somehow, the bathroom has become the place to be, for ants. Five or six, everytime you go in. Oddly, five or six DIE everytime we go in. But there are always five or six more.

Imagine my .... there are no words for this one, actually ... when the kids hopped into the tub last night with their awesome new bath toys (coconut shells), and Vaughn saved a bathtub ant from drowning, and decided that he would play with him for the entire bath. Ant-thony** even had a little coconut boat! Vaughn was so gentle, letting him swim for a bit, letting him rest for a bit.

After everyone was clean and fresh, Vaughn gently placed his coconut shell on the edge of the tub. "Anty needs a rest." Naturally, I thought it was a euphemism for "I played with my ant to death". But nope, Anty was just ... resting... I could almost see him panting, in fact. 

"Mommy, can you sew Anty a blanket?" Um....no.

I talked him down to a small piece of toilet paper, carefully draped over the poor thing. (Swimming is hard work.) "Mommy, can you take him downstairs with you and watch him till you go to bed? What time do ants get up? Maybe I'll get up early tomorrow when he gets up and we can have breakfast together."

I quickly assured him that I was not going to babysit the damn ant. But that he'd have a good night sleep, and that, if he wasn't there in the morning, he'd be off doing other ant-ctivities (see what I did there?).

It is to my credit that I didn't pith the damn ant. I did check on him before I went to bed, and he had already recovered from what was probably the most exciting bath of his life, and wandered off to god knows where (not the Ant Highway; catapulty clothesline rides don't start till 9 am. Everyone knows that). Vaughn was quite complacent this morning. "He's probably with his mom and dad."

 So, to sum up, the moral of the story is: the boy needs a dog. Stat.


 * I was a little late.
 ** I tried, but it didn't catch on. Neither did Ant Tracey or ... nope, that's all I had. It was Anty, of course.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Vasoline on the laundry pole?? Did I send you the squirrel video w/ the vasolined (??) bird feeder pole? That sounds really awful now that I reread it!! Ha, ha!
Anyways, maybe they couldn't climb the pole to the laundry then...
Or plant some peonies. Ants LOV'EM!

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