Today has been... interesting. One of those few days where it's actually enough that I'll describe it rather than go off on some random tangent. At least I'm not intending to, but we'll see what happens. By the way, the picture has nothing to do with anything, I just liked it and always have a photo. Would hate to disappoint.
I woke up this (yesterday, as it's about 2:00a.m.) morning to find my kitchen had been invaded. A failed invasion, but very disturbing nonetheless. There were piles of dead ants at my kitchen window and down around my sink. Oddly enough, the uncooked noodles that had rolled under the damn toaster oven I haven't found a place for yet were untouched. The can of oil/grease was untouched. The shelves of food were untouched. My drying paintbrush? Home to a few dead and dying ants. My strainer? Covering the biggest collection of maybe two dozen life ants. My sink, home to a few dead ants, but nothing much. I know a good bit about insects, and I have no clue what the hell was going on with these unwelcome invaders. The window has not been sprayed or treated for pests, to my knowledge, in quite some time. It's on my to do list, but I haven't gotten there yet. I did discover, however, that in the absence of bug spray, lysol kitchen cleaner will kill ants. A slow death, but hey, they invaded my home. That's an act of war.
After that incident, I spent time with Sparky, including my first ever double date and my first ever (televised) soccer game, the World Cup. Ironically, one of those games which nobody scores in until the last few minutes of overtime (yay for Spain! But if they'd waited any longer I wouldn't have cared who won as long as someone finally scored). All in all, it was interesting.
Well after that (I never said I would describe all of my day) was grocery shopping, where I finally got a new light bulb for my reading lamp. Low and behold the old bulb had become so opaque I'm amazed it still worked and that light was able to get through it at all. Now, it's bright enough to read even by the light reflected off the ceiling when it's facing upwards (I like indirect lighting so much better.
And now, as I'm typing this (right as I was starting the previous paragraph) the stupid cat decides to act up. A noise drew me to my guest room, where I find the box fan unplugged and halfway across the room (I have no clue how he managed that), the platter displayed in the room (the work of a friend) fallen down, fortunately for the cat it wasn't broken, a random literature book knocked clean out of the bookcase on the floor by the fan, and the cat's food scattered across the entire room.
And here I was feeling content after a long day. The cat's just lucky I'm a sucker.
Michael, the ants are probably pharaoh ants. Yeah, that's the real name! And they were actually trying to get to one or both of two items. Water and/or sugar based items.
ReplyDeleteBug spray is a very bad idea. You need too wash or clean the window sill and the outside wal where they climbed up to erase the trail they created. Also, use bait traps like combat. They will carry it back to the mound to kill the colony.
You're in the south now son! Things are done differently in the south.
Well, I'm from the South, just not this region. Never heard of Pharaoh ants, but they might have not been where I was from. Just never seen them pile up dead like this. For what it's worth though, it seems they were all getting ready to swarm as well, as it turns out. There were some on the opposite side of the house swarming today. Bait traps have become a must!
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