Patricia Garry

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The Way Ants Are Handled Here

April 4, 2011 By pgarry

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!

Filed Under: Nature / The Environment

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