Thursday, June 14, 2007

out and about / more photos

I loved this sign alerting visitors to the garden that the ants are beneficial and not the fire ants many of us are encountering lately.



The view toward the frog pond, from the writers' kitchen:



A particularly friendly bunny:




A clematis points the way to the gardens at the foot of the writers' kitchen stairs:

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a wonderful sign!

Sometimes I worry I might accidentally exterminate some non-fire ants out in our field.

billie said...

You didn't mention brown bunny!

shara said...

Fire ants, oh I remember those. My youngest daughter (the incredibly, oh, let's say strong-willed one) was fascinated with the fire ant mounds back in Texas. Don't go near the fire ants, I'd say, and she'd look at me with that 'and what if I did?' look on her little determined face. You can probably see where this is going. So one day out in the front yard I was startled from my contemplation of how much the shadows of the tree branches looked like roots when they were spread on the ground under the tree in the afternoon, when she came running to me with her arms outstretched, covered with fire ants. She had seen a mound and stuck both arms in, up to the elbows. Hundreds, literally, of bites. Up and down her arms, in between her fingers, on the backs and the palms of her little hands. Needless to say, after that experience she stayed away, but I can still hear the shrieks and see the swollen, painful bites as clear as if it happened yesterday. "Ants that bite!" she'd say, whenever she saw them.

Luckily she wasn't allergic, I had a friend whose son could get one bite and his eyes and throat would start to close up, it was very frightening the first time we witnessed it.

billie said...

Oh, Shara, that sounds so scary...!

I first encountered fire ants in Texas, when I was there for graduate school, and by the time I got back here after moving around the country for awhile, the fire ants had arrived.

It's a problem in the pasture, although the horses seem very savvy about steering clear of the mounds. We are exterminating them on a regular basis.

I'm so glad your daughter wasn't allergic!

Anonymous said...

Brown Bunny is absolutely adorable!

billie said...

Wait 'til you see the baby raccoon!