Ants

Spring has sprung...kind of. I know last night threatened to freeze and I am sitting here with a mini-heater blowing on my feet, but this is Oregon. Spring is here. With that lovely change of seasons, inevitably come the ants. I know there are products that work really well--my personal fave is Terro. However, you have to put it everywhere. And, while the concept of the traps is much preferable to putting little drops on cardboard squares, the stuff in the traps is really sticky and it dries hard, so if it spills...good luck.

I keep a relatively clean house. I am sitting in my upstairs office and the little critters are roaming amidst my papers. Yuck! What are they looking for? And they stink. If you crush one of them, make sure you use something between your hand and that little creature. That smell will stay on you. Every time your hand comes near your nose, whew!

I have two ant infestation stories which IN HINDSIGHT are mildly amusing. The first happened when my friend Kendall and I were living in West Eugene. West Eugene is a swamp. And the house was older and not really sealed to the elements. We had ants like crazy. We couldn't leave ANYTHING out. By mid-summer, we felt that we had pretty much gotten the problem under control but, well, if it had been under control I wouldn't be telling you this story.

I had swept the kitchen and went to grab the dustbuster (one of my favorite inventions--maybe someday I'll blog about that). I walked into the kitchen with it, turned it on and...ants. Everywhere. They came running (can ants run?) out of that machine. I'll admit it--I screamed. I used the broom to hook the handle and carry the thing out to the back patio where I turned the hose on myself to wash off the creepy critters. That particular dustbuster was never again used.

I said I had two stories, but I've killed over 10 ants since I've been here typing and even though I used paper, I can smell it. Instead of sharing my second story I'm going to go get the Terro and maybe the Raid and deal with this mess.