Ant Season

A couple of years ago I came to the conclusion that there are four seasons in Tecwil: mouse season, tick season, mosquito season, and ant season. These aren't in any predictable pattern, but it does seem that when we are dealing with an infestation of one kind of obnoxious beast, we don't have problems with the other three. This may just be because we are so obsessed with finding ways to get rid of one that we don't notice the others.

It's hard to know which I hate the most. Obviously, mosquitoes carry disease, so they are easy to hate. But you can keep them away, mostly, with screens and bug spray and burning coils. And if you wave your hand at them, they fly away. (Mosquitoes in the States seem to be slower and lazier. Often they'll just go right on drinking your blood as you try to swipe them away.) In our eleven years in Tecwil, we've had only two cases of malaria and one case of dengue fever among us, so that's not so bad.

Ticks are irredeemably nasty and they killed one of our dogs, so we don't like them either. I can't write much more about them because I start feeling physically sick.

Mice aren't really such a big deal. We use those glue traps and then I refuse to know any more about what happens. This is one of those things that gets dealt with out of my sight. (Yes, we do have an occasional rat issue and the rats make mice seem hardly worth getting upset over. I fear and hate rats. Again, I have to stop writing about them.)

Right now it's ant season. These critters are biting ants that leave big red welts in their wake. They get into everything. This evening I opened up the water bottle with clean water in it to brush my teeth, and found that ants had gotten inside the lid. Over the weekend they got in a basket of unfolded laundry and I had to go through every piece of clothing and shake out the ants (this is great fun because some of them inevitably end up on your feet and bite you). The tiniest scrap of anything edible brings them in enormous hordes, but often it's hard to figure out what attracted them; suddenly there will be a giant batallion of them sweeping across the kitchen floor, or the living room floor, or ... well, anywhere, really. We've tried everything we know to try, and it's all temporary. They always come back. The only thing that worked long-term was when we called in the professionals (to get rid of the aforementioned ticks). Apparently whatever noxious poisons they used also killed off the ants. We didn't see any for a really, really long time. Of course, who knows what effects all those poisons had on us? Again, let's not think about it.

I really do love living in the tropics. Sometimes I can't remember exactly why, but I know I do.

I have to go now. Piles to grade before I sleep...