My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable...

well, almost.

So there are 4 kinds of ants here: (by here, I mean near our apartment)

The little buggers that bite you. Luckily these ants live in the grass and don’t venture into the apartment. But man they hurt!

The mini-sugar-ants are super-small and oh, so ubiquitous. These little mites get into all the food Paul leaves out if I don’t find it in time to double ziplock it and then put it in another plastic bag. Note: they prefer bullion cubes, sugar, milk, and your occasional bread. They do not like salt, rice, avocado, or garlic. You can kill a ton of them ant they just keep coming back. (ha! get it?)

Black ants are really annoying too because they like trash. For the first few weeks we were here we used the trash can in the kitchen. ha ha! They were all over that mistake. Now we keep a plastic bag hanging on a hook way up high and take out the bag and put it in the trash can on our porch at least once a day. They are under control now, but work very quickly.

The big ants, brown and black. Some of these ants are leaf cutter ants and they seem to go from the garden on the left side of our house to the garden on the right side, cut some leaves, and go back. They tend to work in the evening so if you go out and come back after dark be sure to step over the line of leaf cutter ants in front of the door. Later, I guess they get tired of cutting up leaves, or maybe just the renegade ones do, and some come into the apartment for some kind of crazy suicidal bacchanal, which leaves them all dead in the morning as mentioned before. Perhaps one ant steals another ant’s leaf and the shunned one challenges the robber to a duel. Either way, these renegaders end up in the apartment over night and dead in the morning…

I’ve used the ant spray but it doesn’t seem to last that long. The best thing to use is some good ol’ Windex because it seems to wipe out the trails (they smell the trials or something?) they use to follow one another and then they all get confused and start this massive retreat, which is funny if you’re in a good mood or a mass killing spree if it’s hot and you’re cranky. Keeping food triple bagged or in the fridge also works well too as does NOT putting raw meat outside on the back porch. Remember the Chupacabras, right?! An ant sponge works well for the ones on the counter (the itty bitty ones) so you don’t end up washing your dishes with a sponge with a bunch of dead ants stuck to it. Don’t even ask…

In other news: we are excited to have family coming soon. Our TV is still broken and my Law and Order DTs are almost over. I have almost completed one sock, which is gorgeous on size 1 needles. It is STILL hot here (I know this subject is getting tired, but really it was 93 today). No termites since the spraying took lace, happy about that. Have two chapters finished of the thesis. That´s all for now. More soon!

BTW if you like reading blogs, check this one out. It is so funny it makes me cry (in public at internet cafes):
http://smartypants.diaryland.com/index.html