The Ants Go Marching

It is a paradox for me to try to live organically and still keep the bugs at bay, because as badly as I don't want the chemicals I also detest bugs in my living space!  Zoe Cottage seems to have a plethora of the little vermin hanging about ready to intrude, but the previous owner must not have had the qualms I do about insecticides. I have vacuumed up more dead bugs by the baseboards since we have lived here than I had the whole time we lived at Miller Manor!

When we were doing the inspection on Zoe Cottage before we bought it, we noted that there were some ants in the front window, but the termite inspector sprayed there (before we even realized what he was doing) and they haven't returned to that spot.  He mentioned to us that it would be a good idea to caulk around all the windows as that is where they were coming in, so we added that to the list of things to do one of these days.

Yesterday I decided to launder our sheets, and opened up the curtains just a little bit to let in some light. I left them open but the blinds were closed.  At some point in the evening, Ornery was in the bedroom and noticed something odd about the bottom of the blinds and went to investigate.  He discovered a huge colony of acrobat ants had moved in under the bottom slat. The next couple of hours were spent with a bottle of Windex, a roll of paper towels, the vacuum cleaner and a tube of caulk.

As he was going back and forth with the various tools he found a big spider on the floor outside our bedroom door. He said he thought it was a wolf spider, but couldn't tell for sure.  Ornery said finding all those squatters was "too much excitement" for him, but I am noting this morning that there is one more thing marked off his "to do" list...