The Ants Go Marching

As the temperature heats up the ants appear. All winter the ants are nowhere to be seen. With the coming of warm spring weather we see them routing large holes in our front yard. Thus far we have escaped the advance of their armies. In previous years they have aggressively marched into our house and taken over the kitchen. One day I walked in to find them making pancakes.

There are two memorable ant invasions. The first was one in which the little black ants formed a line across the ceiling and down into the kitchen. They were after something in the trash can and made a line (a bee line?) to whatever grease or sweets they were after. On that occasion I made the mistake of reaching in and shooing them away while taking the trashcan outside. Unbeknownst to me I had incurred a number of small ant bites. The next day my hand swelled to twice its usual size. Thank goodness for Benadryl.

While dating my wife she baked us a large bunch of oatmeal raisin cookies. We were going on a trip so she left them in a plastic bag inside the house by the front door. When we returned to grab them up they were being devoured by a hoard of large red ants. Having learned my lesson these went out without direct skin contact. This was a sad loss of time and energy as it was a special gift. Perhaps those cookies will be better remembered having been lost than having been eaten.

Today I found a line of them stretching from two houses down and going up our outside wall and onto the roof. I don’t want to know what is up there. My fear is that they are stockpiling battering rams and weapons for some future attack that will come from the ceiling and not from ground level.

We spray poison now. It doesn’t seem to help much. Like clowns coming out of a car at the circus there is a never ending amount of ants that live all around our house; largely in holes in the front yard. They have the upper hand. We remain vigilant at all times. Always on guard we hold out against them until winter comes again. Then we gain a season of rest.