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Carol J. Michel

Award winner author of gardening humor books

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May Dreams Gardens

Ants

February 27, 2011 By Carol Michel 13 Comments

When I think of spring’s arrival, I like to think of crocuses, sounding the all clear to alert the other flowers in my garden that it is time to come out and bloom. “The weather is fine, come out and bloom.”

But sometimes spring’s beginning is announced by tiny brown ants that show up in my kitchen. “Where are the crumbs?”

I’ve never kept track of when the ants arrive each year, like I keep track of blooms, but I suspect the ants will be along in a few weeks.

Now, if one is going to have insect guests in their home early in the spring time, ants aren’t too bad to have. According to William Atherton DuPuy in “Our Insect Friends and Foes” (1925), ants are clean. (Yes, that book again.)

DuPuy wrote quite a bit about the ants’ personal cleanliness and grooming and then went on to note,

“This cleanliness applies likewise to the home. Never a particle of anything unclean is to be found about the ant community. Drop anything messy in an ant hill and the sanitary squad is immediately called out to cart it away. Ant homes underground have little ventilation and are without the cleansing influence of the sun. They might easily become litters of filth, musty and unsanitary. They would if infinite care were not exercised. But these housekeepers are immaculate. Every suggestion of soil is given prompt attention. These creatures seem to know by instinct these lessons of sanitation which many human communities have not yet learned. Or, perhaps, those that did not keep clean have long since ceased to exist through the attacks of parasites and fungi.”

This weekend the priest at church told a story about an ant.

The condensed version of the tale is that an ant left home, decided to return, and got run over by a train on the railroad tracks on his way back, thus losing his tail. When he got home and his mother asked him what happened to his tail, he realized he had lost it and went running back to find it. As he crossed the railroad tracks again, another train came by and, splat, he lost his head.

The moral of the story turned out to be, “Don’t lose your head looking for your tail”. 
 
People were visibly shaking with silent laughter when the priest delivered the punch line, but somehow it all tied in with readings for the day.

It also made me continue to think about ants, which lead me to think about bloodroot flowers, and how ants are involved in dispersing their seeds, and the seeds of other plants, too, in a process called myrmecochory. It’s ingenious on the part of the plants to make their seeds attractive to the ants so they’ll cart them off, where they can germinate away from the mother plant, thus spreading the range of the plants, one ant at a time.

Of course, then I started to think about the big black ants that I see crawling all over the peony buds in late spring. I like to think they are tickling open those big fat buds, but that’s a little fanciful and hardly the case. The ants are there for the big drops of nectar and while there, probably eat a few “bad” bugs, too. (It is the garden fairies who pry open those big buds of the peonies. This line inserted by the garden fairies.)

Ants can, of course, be a big pest and nuisance about the house and garden, causing damage if left unchecked in some areas.   And there is nothing worse than to thrust your trowel into the ground and realize, as ants are immediately swarming onto your hand and up your arm, that you’ve just disturbed a big ant hill.

But they are still fascinating to watch.

I will finish off this trail of ant thoughts, with one more musing, a question, posed by DuPuy at the end of his chapter on ants.

“Why do they (ants) merit the praise bestowed upon them in the Biblical saying, “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise.”

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: books, insects

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Dee @ Red Dirt Ramblings says

    February 27, 2011 at 10:43 pm

    Well, I'm not a sluggard this week so I will consider the ant. You made me laugh with this one my friend. I love the drawings in that classic book.~~Dee

    Reply
  2. Helen says

    February 27, 2011 at 10:52 pm

    As one kind of big black ant (the carpenter) has taken an intense liking to the blue foam insulation in our roof, these days I'm adamantly anti-ant. They are hard workers, I'll admit, and they always bring that passage to mind, too.

    Reply
  3. Jess says

    February 27, 2011 at 11:03 pm

    Our local ants, fire ants, swarm and bite and can itch for MONTHS. I'm in the anti-ant column too. As far as bugs go, so far only crickets, praying mantis, fireflies, butterflies and bees are making the grade. Its a hard crowd over here. Lady bugs are on the cusp.

    Reply
  4. Layanee says

    February 27, 2011 at 11:19 pm

    I have never seen a sleeping ant. They are nature's little workhorses and where would the garden be without them? I do not like them in the house however.

    Reply
  5. AMK says

    February 28, 2011 at 12:18 am

    Ants have tails?

    Reply
  6. Lisa at Greenbow says

    February 28, 2011 at 12:41 am

    I must say I don't like those little ants in the kitchen each spring but I don't mind seeing them outside where I think they ought to be. They are industrious and you can spend a lot of time watching them pack goodies into their hills. Amazing what they can carry.

    Reply
  7. Anonymous says

    February 28, 2011 at 1:57 am

    I was wondering about the tails too. I guess that is OK considering the context of the story. Made for a good punch line.

    Reply
  8. Patsy Bell Hobson says

    February 28, 2011 at 4:44 am

    Funny girl. I agree, ants are neatnics. They are so strong. If they were bigger, they would be very scary.

    Reply
  9. Marcia says

    February 28, 2011 at 12:58 pm

    It's amazing how many sizes ants come in. I was introduced to the minute ones when we had cats and the ants found their food in the laundry room. I couldn't believe those tiny specks were ants.

    The bugs that are troublesome here are the brown marmorated stink bugs. With warming temps they are coming out of their hiding places in my house and flying around. I've yet to smash one because I know they will stink so I them into a glass of detergent water to drown. Hopefully there will be traps for sale soon a la Japanese beetles to capture them.

    Reply
  10. Kim says

    February 28, 2011 at 10:05 pm

    My son loves to watch the ants in the summer. We don't usually have too much trouble with them. I think it is too cold here for most insects. I guess that is one upside of all the snow!

    Reply
  11. Lydia says

    February 28, 2011 at 11:30 pm

    Ants in California usually either mean rain is coming or it is going to be HOT. Rarely, like this morning- it means they are looking to warm up and dry off):-

    Reply
  12. Gail says

    March 1, 2011 at 2:47 am

    Industrious little creatures…I noticed one in the kitchen the other morning~ gail

    Reply
  13. liz says

    March 1, 2011 at 4:21 am

    I woke up to a nightmare this morning. A swarm of ants in my kitchen. The vacuum won for now…suddenly spring doesn't seem quite so heavenly.

    Reply

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