Monday, May 18, 2015

May 20


The ants are on the move, both inside the house and out, now that the ground has warmed enough to encourage their emergence. Our sugar ants are particularly troublesome indoors; tiny little things, they seem to enter through window cracks and form small skirmish lines as they forage for any food and water source. We have a small invasion just now as I write this, seated at my desk, with a short trail of tiny invaders coming from somewhere near the sill and progressing close to me by the desk’s edge. They don’t make it too far beyond, for the cat is decidedly invested in picking them off one by one with her tongue.

Yesterday afternoon, I watched a singular black ant tirelessly work to drag a small fragment of a pretzel across the driveway. It was amazing really, to watch as the ant encountered the piece of food at least five times its size, then slowly drag it across the wide expanse of the pavement. I watched it follow a nearly straight line for twenty feet, I suppose using its antennae to sense the pheromone trail it had left from the nest. When it reached the driveway edge, it navigated the jungle of the lawn, disappearing with its prize into the wild.

Notes:
False Solomon’s Zeal in bloom

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