Patience, Stamina, Give Away

Good Morning -

"Ewww" might be the initial response to this Virgen if you've gotten a good look at it. A lot of people aren't too keen on looking at close-up pictures of insects and certainly not a bunch of them in a circle around the Virgen.

So, why the ants, then? Besides that it's High Biting Bug Season here in Tucson thanks to the rains, and besides that we seem to have every manner of biting bug living in our house right now (especially in the electrical hot zone under our computer desks), the reason that there is a trail of ants circling the Virgen is because we came home last night to a trail of ants circling the cat food dishes in our kitchen.

My partner is as tired of living in the refrigerated truck of a dining room as I am, so thought that we could leave the window units off yesterday and with doors cracked (like most houses here, we have heavy, metal, locking security screen doors on all the doors, so can leave the wooden doors open and still be locked up), we could get enough air to keep the place cool while we were at work (I love her for her optimism).

The fire ants being the industrious little creatures that they are, though, took full advantage of a day of only security doors (which in our case don't fit well and leave an inviting gap at the base) to form a work line from their home in our yard to the three cat food dishes in the kitchen.

We had gone straight from work to Target and then to Miss Saigon for the best Pho in Tucson (the linked picture doesn't do this dish justice - get the meatball pho - it's fantastic).

I've mentioned before that I hold my short-term stress in my stomach and that there's been some stress lately with all the changes and uncertainties ("potentials" when I'm centered), so my stomach was all sorts of tight yesterday (not in the sculpted, Olympic athlete way, either). My partner suggested Pho for dinner as something easy on the belly and it sounded fantastic. We knew they'd have their A/C running high, so we could get away with eating soup.

All of this had us getting home at 6:30, which would have been in time to feed Boris before his evening insulin if we hadn't been escorted into the house by the longest, thickest trail of fire ants I've ever seen. Boris, being the non-violent, security-focused practitioner that he is, sat next to the trail of ants, watching them come and go and making sure they didn't get out of line. The other cats simply gave us looks of exasperation that they had been cut off from their food since whatever time the ants took over.

It would have been an amazing site if it hadn't been in our house. They really are the most industrious little buggers you can imagine - no-one out of line, each with a specific duty, never stopping to rest.

My partner isn't fond of insects, especially in the house, so immediately began to step on them while I got online to look for a solution. I normally do catch and release with bugs, but there was no way to get these ants out of our house without some causalities. Knowing that, I wanted to do it in the quickest, least harmful way possible.

Through a quick search, I found a site that encouraged the use of vinegar to wipe out their trails and then cinnamon and/or pepper at the place where they were entering the house to prevent them from entering.

Once we had our plan, I set out spraying the trail with cider vinegar (the only kind we had) and wiping up the dead while my partner donned oven mitts to carry the ant-covered food dishes out to the yard (remember, these were fire ants, which leave nasty, nasty bites). Once there were no more ants in the house, I sprinkled the bottom of our front door frame with cinnamon and pepper, for good measure (I strangely enjoyed this part, feeling as if I had stepped into an ancient Wicca ritual).

Once it was all said and done, our floors were a little cleaner, we smelled like a fish and chips joint, and the only biting insects left in our house were the mosquitoes that live under the computers.

As a means of honoring the dead, I suggested we look up the meaning and messages of ants (whenever I have a strange animal encounter, I always take it as a clue and look to learn more about what the animal might be trying to teach me). According to the Animal Spirits page, ants are all about patience, stamina, planning, energy and patience needed to complete work, communal living and storing for the future.

Every one of those attributes works well for our current situation and served as a good reminder. I added "give away" to the title of this piece because the Animal Medicine cards my friend who does readings uses also add that ants have many characteristics of many different creatures, including the give away of turkey - meaning that they are able to give away what they no longer need.

So that's our Virgen - corners of basil images against black for the Pho, the cover of the menu for Miss Saigon, the ring of ants, and the Virgen.

Here's to patience. Here's to stamina. Here's to give away, and here's to paying attention.

Oh, he's just so handsome, my Boris. Indeed.

Owen's looking a bit of a wreck since his entire undercoat decided to shed in one glorious moment. He needs a good brushing, but we have to do it in small increments because he gets overstimulated easily.