Nuptials in the night

Living in the tropics is full of adventure. Having come here from the high desert of Colorado it has been and still is an incredible learning and growing experience.

Todays topic is ants, we have here in the tropics an amazing array and quantity of ants.  I can't say I really appreciate them, but I do understand their purpose.  They are cleaners, sort of like the Sweepers on a spy show.  They swoop in and clean up the mess.

This morning, as happens most morning, my first order of business is to take a stroll about the garden.  Our 2 dogs, Tech and Ceniza don't come with me, they prefer to stay in bed with Tom, heck they sometimes even stay in bed after he gets up.  The fosters however, Lili and Rubi, are always more than happy to accompany me.

We had another BIG rain last night.  Thursday night was nearly 2 1/2 inches, last night was nearly 3.

After a rain, a substantial rain, when conditions are hot and humid,  and the wind is minimal, swarms  of winged  ants  will leave their nest and take flight. These ants that depart the nest are sexually active - according to wiki "This mating flights occur simultaneously in all ant nests of the particular species. The female "queen" ants will fly a long distance, during which they will mate with at least one winged male from another nest. He transfers sperm to the seminal receptacle of the queen and then dies. Once mated, the "queen" will attempt to find a suitable area to start a colony ..."

Thursday night we had friends over.  Normally we do our entertaining outside, it is waaaaay cooler outside.   Luckily Thursday night we were 7 total so being inside wasn't too bad.  The rain was relentless.  So as we were sitting around the table the small flying ants would drop around us. They were attracted during the night to the lights shining from inside.  My screens are covered in the ant wings which detach once they land.  I am still cleaning up ant wings from Thursdays swarm.

This morning, Saturday, as I was standing  out on the pergola admiring the jungle that my back garden has once again become, it sounded like rain drops hitting the leaves.  I looked  up, farther up than the tops of the quite tall trees, and there was a monstrous swarm of the large red black ants. It was a seriously huge swarm, and the ants were just dropping, like rain drops.  It's now over an hour since I first saw them and they are still out there, swarming and dropping.

Great, a queen wants to set up housekeeping in my back garden.  Where are the bats, the birds??????  why aren't they there feasting?????

Ants in my Pants!

So last night Jonna and I were talking about ants, she has both a swollen eye, and a big inflammation on her inner bicep.  She postulates that the teeny tiny ants get washed in to her pool when she is cleaning the patio, then when she is done she gets in to cool off and the ants bite her.


Well this morning I did a load of Landry and hung it out; white laundry.  I typically go out at intervals and shake hanging laundry to get some of the wrinkles out.


So I go out a few minutes ago and my panties are covered in teeny tiny brown ants, we sometimes call them sugar ants.  They are coming off the wall, along the clothes line, and down all over the clothes, and today the stuff closest to the wall are my panties,  Yipes, Ants in my Pants!

ahhhhhhhhh, the tropics

So Sunday, being Sunday found us putzing around the house in our jammies, doing odd projects, reading, watching TV, cruisin the computer up until it was time to meet up with some friends for a lebanese restaurant lunch.  We did clean up and get out of the jammies prior to heading out!  In case you wondered!

We were totally stoked as this was a new place to us, and we had heard was fabulous, AND that it is better than our current favorite lebanese food place where we think the food is awesome.

So off we go, with route mapped out on our fab ipad2 in hand.  Made the incursion into foreign soil with little or no fuss or bother; probably almost as good as having a GPS. The new place is in area where we were a bit unfamiliar, although we've been to  places in the vicinity before. 

Lunch was indeed awesome, and some things were better than at our other place, and some things at our other place are better.  But this place also has bellydancers on Sunday afternoons at 3. Ummmm, definite bonus!

OK, so the new place is Habibis (habibi by the way, means darling, or dearest, or some endearment similar).  Our previous favorite is/was/is the Lebanese Club.  I haven't formed any opinion yet other than they are both fabulous.

Sundays are buffet days at both places, and both have fabulous range of choices and options.  And I did enjoy the belly dancers.

So, after this fabulous lunch we stopped by the super on our way home, picked up a few things we needed and some extra fruit to snack on.  We were planning a quiet evening at home, movie, snacks, maybe even a bit of a/c.

We're putting things away, and I noticed ants in Tatie, the cat's bowl, no big deal.  so I get a bigger bowl, put water in it and set his food down.  Rinse the old food and ants down the drain and decide to take the compost out.  Have my tour around the yard and return to wash up the dishes.  Then I notice ants filing past on the window ledge in front of me.  I start to follow,,,,the line thickens, they are all in and around my shopping bags that hang in the pantry, no big deal, toss the bags onto the patio, decide to wait for the ants to deisperse then shake the bags out.  Then I notice ants moving down the side of a cabinet, then up onto a high shelf where I have teapots displayed, then down behind the refri, then then, then,  So after about 2 hours we have 3 rooms destroyed, every tea pot, basket, and box had a colony, colonies starting in several paintings and pictures, under coat hooks, in a towel bar bracket, in the bag that holds the bags, dog food bucket, cat bowl, books, magazines, lordy lordy lordy,

I pull out the Orange oil stuff, Tom goes for the Home Defense.   We are killing machines!

Right now the place looks as if a bomb has been dropped,  we are in a holding pattern, waiting for movement........are there more?  can we restore order?

Ah the Tropics!  And the Tropics during the rainy season &%#*@%#^&*(#@!

They're baaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

We had a lovely rain on Saturday night, and continued with some light showers on Sunday.  It's been quite a while,  but then we are coming up on the season!   Oh and the humidity level is rising.

We all know what that means!     

 They are relocating.  All that time during the dry season they established their colonies underground and we didn't see too many of them, but now, with the first rains, they are on the prowl and they are looking for you! 



They will find ways to get in and set up nest in any and everything, and they do it with great stealth, and oh so quickly....they are sneaky, wascally, and quite tricksy....