This has been an unusual year for ants here at my house in the woods. Normally, as soon as the earth heats up a bit in February, several different tribes of ants arrive, checking out the territory. I saw just one ant, all by its lonesome, during that wintry month.
And in March, continuing into now, a tribe of very small black ants made a foray, and decided they like it here. And they are refusing to be discouraged. Normal ant procedure is that they show up, I have a conversation with them, in my head mostly, but occasionally out loud. And in a day or two, they are gone.
There really is nothing to eat, so there’s no point, particularly this time of year. I seldom cook, don’t leave messes on the counter, open stuff is in the fridge. So they’re just wasting their time, which is what I explain during our conversations.
On rare occasions, I have had to talk to the ant deva, the archetype of whichever tribe, to make my case. I always picture a humongous ant (or whatever creature I’m trying to communicate with) sitting in the forest up against a tree, just soaking in energy. Usually very reasonable, a nice conversation.
But these ants are not cooperative thus far. So I’m going to talk to them one more time, and then get out the boric acid, which I will put around the opening where I have seen them coming in. As I understand it, the powder hurts their exoskeletons and they avoid it. I’ve only had to do that 2 or 3 times in the all years here, with all the ant tribes marching through. It works. It’s not my preference, but sufficient is sufficient. Enough already!