11 May 2016

This is the view from the kitchen window this morning. The plumeria is not doing too well. And one of the small fig trees has not survived this mild winter. The roses are late but I forgive them.
While chopping some fresh strawberries into my porridge, I listen to the news, the road works and the birds, considering whether I should douse the evolving ant hills on the patio stones with boiling water or let them be. 
Bad karma. 
Years and years ago, we called on a friend living at a Tibetan Buddhist place in the south of France where we not only shared the bedroom with seven nesting swift families flying in and out of the windows, but also had to carefully accommodate various ant colonies in the shower. It was all done very orderly, the ants were provided with safe passage to and from the soap dish and stayed well away from the drains. 
Only two years before that trip, I daily spent a good amount of time killing large civilizations of ants, thick red ants, which ran along my washing line and nested inside the door frames and the box with S's colouring pencils and basically everywhere. Not forgetting the cockroaches, spiders as large as your hand (the smaller ones, the larger versions were higher up in the trees) and of course, mosquitoes. The geckos and the skinks and the giant millipedes, however, S wanted to keep as pets. Life in paradise was not without challenges.

4 comments:

Steve Reed said...

My vote on the ants: Unless they bite or invade your house, I'd let them be. I am a bug-saver, unless the bug bites me. Then it's war. (Hence I have no problem killing mosquitoes!)

Ms. Moon said...

Here in Florida we battle bugs all the time in our own casual way. We've been overtaken by fleas lately and that will NOT do. I've also been noticing moths in the kitchen.
Oh dear.
Let's not even talk about the outside. The ants are horrible this year, all of them which deliver burning, stinging bites. And the mosquitoes have been awful. And now come the yellow flies which actually draw blood when they bite.
Yes. Living in paradise does have its challenges.

Anonymous said...

I'm a bug saver too, but not when ants or fleas invade our house. Then it's war. I do capture and release spiders, moths, and sowbugs very often and release them outside. I try to find a way to let critters have space, knowing how much we humans have invaded theirs.

molly said...


I had heard that instead of using ant poison one should scoop up a shovel full from one ant colony and dump it on another which, supposedly, will cause ant war to break out. Planting flowers yesterday, I tested the theory. Immediate ant consternation! But today it is obvious that the victorious side went right away to reproducing......My conclusion? Ants are indestructible.