Mar 05 2008
Creepy Crawlers
Have I mentioned that I love living in the country? I really do. It’s so much nicer than the city. I don’t have the constant headlights shining on my bedroom windows, I haven’t had anyone drive their car over my mailbox, and I don’t have to listen to car alarms going off at 3 a.m. It’s a nice quiet life. I love it.
What do I hate? The creepy crawly things. The worst has been the ants. Ants are insidious insects. They get into everything. If I see one ant, I call the exterminator. He has to come out here very often. It’s like if one ant finds its way onto my countertop within hours we will have ants galore! They have some sort of telepathy that goes out to every ant in the county to know there were some miniscule crumbs on my kitchen counter. The exterminator came out and laid a barrier around the inside walls of the house. Did that stop them? NO! They climbed the outside walls and got into the attic came down through the walls and out the electrical sockets. When I went to bed I had nice clean kitchen counters. I woke up to an army of ants in my kitchen. Currently, I think they are under control, but if I see one I will be on the phone to the exterminator!
The other thing I hate? Black Widow Spiders. I was cleaning the screen room last fall and I started to pull a chair away from the wall when I heard the sticky crackling noise of a Black Widow web breaking. If you’ve never heard it, it’s a very creepy sound. It has a sticky sound to it that if you hear it once, you’ll never forget it. I quickly threw the chair down and there she was hanging to the back of the chair. My fingers were so close to her, she could have easily bitten me. I rewarded her for not biting me by not taking her life. I dragged the chair out into the yard and sprayed her with the water hose until she was washed off onto the ground. I didn’t want her on my porch, but I didn’t want to kill her either.
If you ever come to visit, I’ll get the exterminator to come out before you arrive.
Y’all come back!
Fay
Wow! I’m all chilly from the spider story….you describe the crackling of the web so well, I could hear it!
We have crazy fat millipedes in the barn and boxelder bugs on the outside of our garage. Those boxelder bugs are crazy…they come out in the sunshine and literally swarm all over everything. There are millions of them…anything that comes in that big a quantity is creepy!
Fortunately, they do no damage and the infestation will be finished by May when they either die or retreat back to the woods….here’s a picture of them: http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/05522.html
Good to see a post from you again!
I know what you mean about the ants. Are yours fireants? Mine are and they hurt when they bite you. Now on the black widow spiders, they have to go when I see one. Mainly because we have Grandchildren now that I am worried may get biten by black widows (or the fire ants).
The biggest fight is still with the fire ants. They just keep coming back.
I don’t mind black widows, but nothing makes me drop my crunchy, love-all-creatures approach to life like carpenter ants. They’ve infiltrated a weak log in our house, and NOTHING seems to get rid of them. That’s a big poblem for someone living in a cedar cabin!