It's not nice to fool [with] Mother Nature....

When I'm not writing, I like to spend time in my flower garden or paddling around a local lake in my kayak.  Unfortunately, Maine has been very rainy this year, so most of May, June and July, when it's actually warm enough to allow me to spend the time out of doors, I was stuck inside because of foul weather.

With the coming of August, we've started to dry out a little, so I've been doing some much needed weeding.  This comes with some pleasant and not-so-pleasant surprises.

On the pleasant side of the spectrum, I've found that the roses that my daughter requested on the side of the garage are growing and thriving, even though I had often been told that the only roses that would grow well in Maine were beach roses.  We have a lovely deep (almost burgundy) tea rose called the "Mr. Lincoln" that is up to my waist.  There is a pink beach rose next to that that is was planted a year after the tea rose that is also getting quite tall.  The third and fourth rose bushes, planted at the same time, are still the smallest, with the peach colored one doing better than the purple rose, but they're also looking healthy.  In the rotting out whiskey barrel under the mail box, I was surprised to find that the Morning Glory that I planted last year has returned, so I gave it some twine to hold onto and encouraged it to start climbing the metal post again.  I was rewarded this morning with big, beautiful new blooms.  And next to the small pond that my husband put in - about the size of a bath tub (which needs to be drained again due to algae growth from all the rain), the lavender I planted two years ago and which I thought had died out last year has come back and is starting to spread a little.  Always a pleasure to see that my efforts are starting to pay off.

But on the not-so-pleasant side, Mother Nature seems to have played a very cruel trick on me in the form of an invasive ant species that I didn't really want to find here in Maine:  fire ants!  Those who live in the southern United States know what I'm referring to, but for those who've never had an encounter with fire ants, let me describe this scenario.

You're outside talking with someone and you're standing quietly.  Unnoticed, tiny red ants start climbing up your legs because, without realizing it, you're standing either on or a little too close to their colony.  When fifty or more have made their way up onto your bare skin, someone does a count down - and ALL of the ants bite into you at the same time!  You suddenly feel like you're on fire, and you dance around and brush them off as fast as you can, but it's too late.  The little demons, who only bite you in order to get a good grip so that they can sting you and inject their venom into you.

I first met these little demons in Florida, and it was part of the reason why I didn't stay there.  I had never come across them in Maine, so when I was happily weeding away and suddenly felt a sting on my elbow, I thought I had a hornet on me - until I saw the little red ant hanging there.  Standing, I found that the sweat pants I was wearing had hundreds of the little demons trying to bite through the cloth, and just like in Florida, I did a little dance, brushing madly at my pant leg, and when I had managed to knock most of them off, ran up onto my porch, stripped off the sweat pants (thankful that the elderly man across the street wasn't there to see me), and went inside to try to locate something to take away the burning sensation.

Suffice to say, as soon as I had treated the burning area, I went out and bought some of the bug poison that I'd purchased many times in Florida to kill off the nests in our yard.  I'm still dealing with the nasty pustules that formed where the biters managed to connect with skin, and I still need to go out to finish the weeding, but I'm sincerely hoping that the poison killed off the little monsters, even if I hate to put poison into my flower garden.....

And naturally, I'm cataloging this experience in the dusty file area in the back corner of my brain, suspecting that this personal experience can be used at some point in a story line.....

(Picturing how Stephen King or Ray Bradbury might use this.  Imagine, if you will, a person who is calmly talking to a neighbor when the ants start to bite, and he is reduced to nothing more than bone in just a few minutes........)

Now, where did I put that stick that I can use to probe the area where I need to weed next to make sure the ants are dead......