Ants Don't Sleep

Okay, a warning to my northern friends. This may be a painful post. And I’m sorry, but you had your chance. I’ve told you for years that you should move to Oklahoma.

It was 72 degrees today and I worked in the flower beds. Yep! February 7^th= 72 degrees. Wore my new gardening gloves. Used the new hoe I bought on clearance at Lowe’s. Trimmed dead stalks and pulled a few weeds. Gleefully counted the daffodils and tulips poking through the ground. Put out the new solar lights. Filled the bird bath. Loved every minute of it!

These are the days that nourish my soul and help me make it through what is left of winter. All I need is just a day of sun and warmth every so often to keep my hopes up and my motivation strong.

Of course everything can’t be rosy and positive! I also discovered that the ants are getting an early start. Or do they ever stop? I don’t think fire ants sleep or hibernate or even die. I think it’s a myth that we can actually kill them with anything. I think they just move to another area for a time to appease us. Anyway, I accidently struck a hill and watched them scurry around for a few minutes. By May I’ll be desperately trying to get them to stay over on the other side of the fence and leave me alone. Ant bites send me scurrying for the Benadryl.

I’m trying to decide what to plant in the vegetable garden this year. I’m not much of a gardener when it comes to produce. I can handle tomatoes, okra, squash, and cucumbers- all the easy stuff. However, I’d like to try something more exciting this year. I’m just not sure what.  

I also want to buy a garden shed. Believe it or not, I don’t have one. All our stuff is stored on the patio and I’m tired of looking at it and tripping over it. This summer I want it all moved out to the back yard, into a storage shed, and I want to use the patio for relaxing. Of course that brings up the problem of the wind.

I told Gary last week that I would like to have a rocker for the front porch- if I could figure out how to keep it ON the front porch! LOL Same problem with any sort of patio furniture. The wind has been strong enough to send our BBQ out into the yard several times. Today’s wind forecast was 30-35mph. I have metal lawn chairs under the tree in the front yard and the wind rolls them around like dice. Perhaps I could bolt patio furniture into the cement. Or put heavy weights on the legs. Or keep sand bag dummies to replace us when we aren’t sitting in the chairs. I can spend the remaining cold days figuring it out. Any suggestions?

So spring is playing hide and seek this weekend and I’m happy to play along. I hope you had a great day too!

Comments

[patty craft]

LOL! Lucky YOU! I'm catching up on posts and see you enjoyed some awesome weather. We were happy here this weekend with 55 degrees -- nearly unheard of in February.

And I agree about how dependent we are on electricity. When the power goes out here during a dark time, I just go to bed.

have a great day!

[Megan]

Yeah, us "northern" friends don't like you southern people much in the month of February. We had a taste of 50 degree weather over the weekend and have watched several more inches of snow fall in the last 24 hours.

My recommendation for keeping the patio furniture down? Fence it in and pray really hard. We've put up a 6 foot fence to try to keep out furniture in the yard, but when we have those fun 90 mph gusts in the spring, a fence is moot.

My cushions are packed away until May. I'm so jealous. Green with envy doesn't begin to describe it as I survey the damage a foot of HEAVY snow sitting on everything for 2 months has done on my poor plants.

But I can't wait to see your garden pictures. Post them as soon as you think it's looking pretty!