Tuesday 22 July 2014

Infestation!

It is just as well that only a small pain afflicted me yesterday because I needed to use my back....

On opening my ancient front door I found a swarm of flying ants occupying my porch!

I gulped, rushed for the insect spray , used it and went back into the safety of home! Later my cleaner arrived. I really don't know what I would have done without her.

Once the visible ants were dead we moved the pots of flowers outside and surveyed the mess! Ants had clearly colonised the large door mat which was down when we bought the house.

In trepidation we prised it up having no idea what lay beneath it...this was a working farm twenty years ago...it could have been anything....

We rolled the huge mat to one side and found to our great relief quarry tiles!

The cleaning process did not take long and there it was....a perfectly good floor hidden all these years by a very tatty door mat!

No longer having a wet dog charging in and out I have sent for a small mat with poppies on it and eventually will take the pots of flowers back in when I am satisfied no ants are lurking beneath the leaves.

As well as sorting out the ants I have also swept up last night mole hills in the garden.

The joy of living in the country....what ever next! Slugs and snails we already have plus toads, ants and moles...I suppose if the plague follows it's biblical course it should be the frogs next followed by the boils...

Somehow I can forgive the deer who sometimes eat delicate plants and sleep on my poppies but I have to draw the line somewhere....it's ants, especially those with wings.......

 

2 comments:

Ray Barnes said...

Nasty! Funnily enough, though I claim never to kill anything, ants are the exception.
They are highly intelligent, very organised and very very numerous.
I think it is usually very humid weather which causes the invasions of the flying variety.
We had some in the high street in Aylesbury last week and I was dreading getting off the bus at home, but there were none here.
Hopefully once the thundery end of July has passed we will all be free of most of the insect population.
Lovely that you discovered your tiled floor though.

Revjeanrolt said...

I don't kill things either Ray, apart from these ants....they are having another go at colonising the porch again this morning!