When you cart a reel mower around 2 acres of tall grass you’re gonna learn a thing or two about ants. The most disastrous thing you can do while pushing a reel mower is run right into an ant hill because it will projectile fling ants in all different directions; all over your torso and legs and depending on how fast you were going, sometimes even in your hair. I don’t know if anyone reading this has ever met fire ants but you don’t want them in your hair. I actually have 2 different types of carpenter ants, citronella ants, sugar ants, and fire ants on my property. If anyone needs to know what they have, send me a picture and i can identify them for you because if its an ant and its living, chances are i have it. The first time i mowed the lawn i mowed right into at least 3 ant hills. They were concealed by the tall grass. As soon as the blades hit the dirt i knew i’d messed up. I watched as ants went flying through the air; seemingly in slow motion. Pretty soon it was raining relentless little dots of fire. They were crawling all over my shirt and through my hair. I was running around the yard like somebody had set my tail ablaze, swatting and frantically flailing about. It didn’t take me long to realize i needed to make a few modifications to my methods. I will now share my hard earned wisdom so that others may avoid repeating my mistakes. First of all, trade in your tennis shoes for a pair of high lacing boots. Then, don’t lace them. You want to be able to slip them off at a moment’s notice. If you find yourself standing in a swimming mass of insects, you don’t want to be fiddling with the double-knotted bows like an idiot. Second, wear loose pants and leave the drawstring hanging. If those suckers head up your legs, you don’t want to be the dainty proper girl standing in the yard being eaten alive while picking ants one by one from the upturned edges of your neatly folded and rolled pants legs. Rip em off and swat like ****. Nobody has time for that. If you wanna live, take the **** pants off. Whose gonna look, squirrels? Third of all, and this one is most important; run like ****. I learned, even if you do step on an unforseen anthill, if you can avoid lingering, you can get in and out before they sound the alarm and swarm you. If you keep moving you’re probably safe. If you stop for even a second, that’s all the time they need to latch on. So, it looks funny, because it appears to the naked eye that you’ve lost your **** mind and are sprinting to the end of some kind of triathlon involving a lawn mower. But, in actuality, you are getting shit done while outrunning thousands of little animals that would have you writhing in agony in a second while their buddies covered you up to your eyeballs in some sick mummification process called “puss-filled hives”, and that is what we call living in harmony with nature.
hahaha oh the joys! I’ve run over a few big hills here before… I thiiiink we just have regular old black ants, some little red biting ones that seem to have picked up a liking for all things ‘me’ AND big black carpenter ants. Not as bad as what you have- I’m thankful.
Pretty much all ants suck though. Fire ants though.. Holy Hanna.. when I was in Texas years ago, I had the mis-pleasure of meeting fire ants and some other monstrosity that had huge pincers and really bad attitudes. I haven’t needed to move like that since.
When I cut the grass out here I almost look like I’m heading snake infested woods… huge rubber boots that cinch at the top, knee high socks over thick baggy jeans, baggy sleeves with taped wrists and gloves tucked into them… it’s kind of ridiculous the things we have to do just to ‘get along’ with Mother Nature and all her little wee friends, ain’t it? haha