Longhorn in Paradise

This will be my first of three posts today...the next two are of Hagen's birthday pics and Liska's impersonation of Janis Joplin...a couple of must sees!!

First of all though, I was going to write to complain about all the freakin' bugs in this state...we were basically bug free (minus a couple black widow spiders) in Valencia, but now we are constantly inundated by ants and moths and spiders, etc etc etc. Well, this past week, we finally had it....

I woke up and was going to put Hagen into his booster chair and it was COVERED in ants! I thought, geez, what a sloppy kid! He makes such a mess, the ants come in here to dine on his droppings...and by droppings, I mean crumbs, not like, the other kind of droppings...that would be gross.

Then, I went into my office and my entire window sill was FILLED with ants!! And I am fastidiously clean...well, I don't spill nearly as much as Hagen. So, I thought, we have a problem...

THEN, I see that Liska is so comfortable around ants that she has started to name them and collect them...she is like some sort of ant charmer and picks them up and lets them crawl all over her hands and arms...geez louise! I definitely want her to be good with all living things, but that is a bit overboard.

So, my first thought in eradicating this lower life form was to kill off a majority of them with either a poisonous spray or my fancified plastic aardvark (aka the vacuum cleaner)...I started to do that and thought, wait a minute...I can't kill all these guys. I need to leave a few survivors so they can go back and tell their friends about the evil owners of this house...then, I thought, that is silly...they are not that sophisticated in their communication (not to mention their ability to comprehend the cause and effect of the situation)...so, then I thought, why don't I take a couple of the dead ones and attach them to stakes (or, in this case, toothpicks) and leave them there for future interlopers to see as a warning sign that all who pass here will pay a heavy price. Again, a bit of a stretch that they would really "get" it. I mean, I am not playing the ant card here, but they are not known for their intellect.

Finally, I consulted my trusty partner in extermination, Kat, for her advice. She said "just call Terminix". Hmmm...seemed like a compelling idea...simple...but it might just work....I will let you know how that goes.

Hope everyone out there is doing well...a special shout out to Greg as he recovers from his horrific fall...not my story to tell, but you can probably check out the Brown blog that is linked on the left side of my blog to read about that in the near future. Greg, just know we are thinking about you brother and hoping for your speedy recovery...fyi, I did sell my stock in Absolut and Natural Ice, so thanks for the heads up on that. ;-)

Much love to all!

jak