Live ants carrying oatmeal and almond crumbs
Dead ants, after my can of Raid and I found themSummer = ants in Haiti, apparently. :) Just last night I found hundreds of the little creatures munching on almonds and oatmeal up in our baking cupboard. They had walked right past all of the sugars! A friend says they are health nuts. :)
This is something Todd wrote for the blog back when the kids and I were in the States. Just today I took our sheets out of the washer and noticed tiny holes all over the brand new sheets mom had gotten us for our anniversary just about a month ago!!! (Supposedly 12th anniversary is linen.) Those little guys were eating our sheets, not just invading our bed!!!!
Today is Sunday, a day of rest. Somebody forgot to tell the ants. I wake up not quite as early as a normal work weekday, but it’s early for a Sunday. I read John 16, where Jesus encourages his disciples just hours before that last night in the Garden of Gethsemane. Oswald Chambers challenges me in My Utmost for His Highest. I eat a leisurely breakfast. It is very quite around here since Jennifer and the kids are in Florida for a week, attending a bit of the Nazarene church’s General Assembly. I head upstairs to get ready for church.
As I start to make the bed, I notice quite a few ants are on the bottom sheet on my side of the bed. I lift the blanket (Jennifer uses it to shield herself from my fan at night) and see thousands of ants who have decided to move in. I lift the top sheet and see even more. I start to squish them but, yeow, these ones bite. Rats! It’s the kind of bite that continues to itch much longer than most mosquito bites.
I wrap them up in the sheet and decide to do some laundry. I grab the whites as I go downstairs, and throw everything in the wash. The sheets are colored, but maybe a little bit of bleach won’t do them harm. I hope it will harm the ants, and Jennifer isn’t around to dissuade me. City electricity is still on which means our water pump will supply enough water to do a good rinse. I set the machine for an extra rinse, just for good measure.
I’m home from church now, and I open the washer. What? Still there? It looks like at least some of them made it. Into the dryer they go. I turn our gas dryer up to high heat. I am afraid to set it on MAX for fear I will damage some article of clothing that I maybe should have sorted out but didn’t. This will be the first test of our new inverter that I installed yesterday. Even though our dryer’s heat comes from propane gas, it still draws quite a bit of current to turn the drum and ignite the gas. No problem for the new workhorse inverter.
Fifty minutes pass. Are my little visitors toasted or have I just treated them to a relaxing spin at the sauna? Dead ants around the door and in the lint trap. This is good. One fella seems quite active, but a quick squash takes care of him. I spread out the sheets and clothes, looking for more extreme survivors. If there are more, they are good at hiding. Just in case, I leave the clothes spread out for a while.
Hmm, seems like there are some clothes to be folded around here someplace.
Today is Sunday, a day of rest. Somebody forgot to tell the ants. I wake up not quite as early as a normal work weekday, but it’s early for a Sunday. I read John 16, where Jesus encourages his disciples just hours before that last night in the Garden of Gethsemane. Oswald Chambers challenges me in My Utmost for His Highest. I eat a leisurely breakfast. It is very quite around here since Jennifer and the kids are in Florida for a week, attending a bit of the Nazarene church’s General Assembly. I head upstairs to get ready for church.
As I start to make the bed, I notice quite a few ants are on the bottom sheet on my side of the bed. I lift the blanket (Jennifer uses it to shield herself from my fan at night) and see thousands of ants who have decided to move in. I lift the top sheet and see even more. I start to squish them but, yeow, these ones bite. Rats! It’s the kind of bite that continues to itch much longer than most mosquito bites.
I wrap them up in the sheet and decide to do some laundry. I grab the whites as I go downstairs, and throw everything in the wash. The sheets are colored, but maybe a little bit of bleach won’t do them harm. I hope it will harm the ants, and Jennifer isn’t around to dissuade me. City electricity is still on which means our water pump will supply enough water to do a good rinse. I set the machine for an extra rinse, just for good measure.
I’m home from church now, and I open the washer. What? Still there? It looks like at least some of them made it. Into the dryer they go. I turn our gas dryer up to high heat. I am afraid to set it on MAX for fear I will damage some article of clothing that I maybe should have sorted out but didn’t. This will be the first test of our new inverter that I installed yesterday. Even though our dryer’s heat comes from propane gas, it still draws quite a bit of current to turn the drum and ignite the gas. No problem for the new workhorse inverter.
Fifty minutes pass. Are my little visitors toasted or have I just treated them to a relaxing spin at the sauna? Dead ants around the door and in the lint trap. This is good. One fella seems quite active, but a quick squash takes care of him. I spread out the sheets and clothes, looking for more extreme survivors. If there are more, they are good at hiding. Just in case, I leave the clothes spread out for a while.
Hmm, seems like there are some clothes to be folded around here someplace.
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