Aftermaths and Fire Ants

This flying siding could have literally cut someone in half. This was one of the most beautiful cedar elms in the meadow. Twisting winds took it down. Photo by: Suna

When flooded, fire ants build these necrotic islands and float their colony to a new location. What a difference a day makes!

Anyone knows an ant, can't.

Move a rubber tree plant.

—Sammy Cahn

I didn’t originally intend to post these pictures, but then it hit me. I’m trying to be as honest as I can about our move to the ranch, and that means talking about scary stuff, too. I know I already did that by talking about yesterday’s tornados and floods, but I thought these two pictures would drive my point home.

UnIdentified Flying Objects

First, I mentioned the flying siding yesterday. I’ll be brief. Just look how far that piece of siding buried itself in the ground when it hit. Now imagine if it had hit somebody. It would be like when I worked in Houston, and a gust of wind blew a sheet of plywood off the roof of one of the skyscrapers. It cut a lawyer in half.

Now some of you will say, “Lawyer…no big loss.” But it could have been anybody. This siding, too, could have cut someone in half if it hadn’t landed harmlessly in our woods.

Fire Ants

Living underground, fire ants are particularly susceptible to floods. They have evolved a cutthroat survival strategy. As their mound floods, the ants flee to the surface.

If water continues to rise, they build floating islands on the corpses of their siblings. The islands are attached to the original mound by a thin string of dead ants. If the water rises enough to break that “string,” the island floats away. It has everything it needs to rebuild the colony where it lands. Notice the princess ant is at the very top of the island in the picture.

The big problem comes when the island floats into an animal or maybe a person. The ants swarm all over that refuge, sometimes millions of them. And they’re not happy. Stay as far away from them as you can.