Ants

We had hoped that the annual invasion of the flying ants would occur while the Harding students were still here. Just a few days before they left, we had two huge thunderstorms. Right on schedule, the ants invaded the following night. The swarms of winged critters clouded the air with their buzzing wings. They followed every light source and crawled through every crack to get into our house. We did as we have done in years past--gave up, turned out the lights, and went to bed. I tried to sneak in a little bit of reading by taking a flashlight and a book under the covers, but a couple of the stubborn ants kept bugging me until I surrendered and went to sleep.

The next morning there were the dead bodies of the ants an inch deep on both front and back verandas. This year we had a good use for them and dumped pails full of the creatures into the chicken pen. The fowls had a feeding frenzy! It was an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord for an hour or two.

We threw more ant carcasses over the fence a couple of times later in the day. By mid-afternoon the chickens had had enough. They turned up their beaks and walked away from the final buffet.