Fire ants in December??
Arriving home from a busy morning…well, playing 18 holes of par 3 golf…I noticed the rope, that was providing some modest support for our tree, was digging into our front yard tree. Just knowing that it can prevent further growth and hurt our tree, I went inside and retrieved the pocket knife.
William followed me out in his socks and started to walk across our front yard. I told him to stand back and not to walkin the grass or he would get his feet wet. Then I started cutting the rope that was for tree support. I looked over once and noticed William was inching his way across the yard checking to see if the grass was wet (it wasn’t). So he bounded over and stood in the mulch being curious and watching me cut into the rope. He was wondering why I had a pocket knife just like my dad’s.
We finished and came inside, to which he walked across the dining room to his mom, then started yelling, “buggies! buggies! buggies!” in a high-pitched four year old scream. Jess took him outside and saw many, many ants all over his socks. So she peeled them off and his pants, and threw them outside. Knocked a few more ants off his legs, and started checking him all over. Meanwhile, I was squishing ants with a paper towel, and singing the pink panther theme song…deadant…deadant…deadantdeadantdeadant….over and over again.
It wasn’t long before I felt a few crawling around on me from being outside, so I dusted them off and squished them. One bit me…ouch! squish!
Then Jess got a few on her that bit, and before you knew it, we realized that these little suckers were fire ants!!!! We went all out on a fire ant squishing party. We were fortunate that most of them were outside on William’s socks and not wandering around inside on the carpet. We are also fortunate to report that no ants got on William or bit him. Ray was up in her crib sound asleep.
We now have a new rule about being outside and something about inspection before coming inside. You’ll have to ask Jess for more specifics.
1 year ago