March of the ants...

Living right on a creek offers many benefits.  Critters and creepy crawly things do not fit into that category.  We were the third house to be built in the entire neighborhood.  From the time we moved in, we have been constantly reminded that we have been squatters on "their" land, and not the other way around.  Ants, spiders, bats, snakes, raccoons and my ongoing battle with one armadillo. 

We have gotten to be on a first name basis with our pest control guy, Ron.  Ron, however, has broken up with us.  He is taking a sabbatical from his business and left us to find a new provider of creepy, crawly killing services.  As a side note, if any of you knows someone in the area that offers these services, please let me know. 

Any how, today, I was reminded by two very dear friends that I have done a sub par job of my vow to do thirty posts in thirty days, so I will now be blogging about whatever tickles my fancy.  And today, that subject is sugar ants.  About three weeks ago we started seeing a few sugar ants here and there near our kitchen counter tops, but try as we might, we could not find the origin.  Soon the ants were increasing and I think, quite possibly, giving Eric more gray hairs.  After several cancelled appointments and no-shows (prior to knowing that Ron's one-man business was no more), we decided to try to tackle the problem ourselves.  With. No. Luck. 

So the other day, after a particularly smelly "code brown" from Liam.  We decided to open up the windows and air the place out.  Not even five minutes later, we finally found the origin of the tiny little bastards. The front flower bed.  Within literally minutes, we probably had about a hundred ants swarming the window seal, walls and windows near our dining room.  Guess what?  "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" was wrong.  Windex does NOT fix everything.  Needless to say, Eric went out and bought poison, but we are still needing some major pest control love right now. 

I thought I would share just a few more reasons why pest control is a must for those who live near a creek:

1.  If you see a black blob on the side of the house, it is probably not a big dust bunny.  It is likely a bat.  And did you know that bats don't take kindly to being swatted with a broom?  Also did you know that hitting a bat with a broom only temporarily immobilizes them?  And further, that if you poke an immobilized bat, they are very likely to wake up? 

2.  Snakes come in all shapes and sizes.  And I have yet to figure out which one's are poisonous.  Eric seems to believe that all snakes we have come in contact with are rat snakes or garden snakes.  It has been a common occurrence to find dead snakes in our glue trap in the garage.  P.S. Chloe is a big fan of throwing live snakes up into the air and trying to catch them.

3. Armadillos are very fast and very angry.  Never pick a fight with an armadillo over flowers.  They always win. 

4. The difference between a mud dobber and a wasp is actually not that big.  Good news: their stings are equally as poisonous!
5. Field mice can and will crawl into the outside exhaust vent of a dryer.  They will also use dryer lint as a nest to birth their babies (after learning that lesson we promptly bought a guard for the outside vents.

6. Anybody who says that squirrels cannot dig through a wall is dead wrong (our last house, but a lesson learned is a lesson learned). 

Any how, I hope I have left you with some lovely thoughts (they say that statistically, we all swallow spiders in our sleep - enjoy Steph!).