We have ants in our field. Red ones, and lots of them. Millions of them. Crawling around in enormous (at least to me) ant hills. I've been watching them, sometimes taking a shovel to them and creating mass ant hysteria. But they always rebuild. I don't like the ants. They don't look like they do anything useful to me, so I got on the Google this morning to learn how to get rid of them. I went to the CSU Extension website, which I should add is enormously helpful to people with small acreage. Instead of learning how to rid myself of ants, I found this little tidbit:
Q. What is the best way to get rid of large ant piles in a pasture?
A. The piles are probably from harvester ants, which play a critical role in recycling nutrients in rangeland ecosystems. They play a role in turning over the soils and allowing enhanced infiltration of water, so they should not be eliminated. And even if they were treated for control, they would probably return.
Another insect I am just going to have to learn to live and work with :)
I have always liked ants, not sure why. Maybe because in watching them I can't help but see a mysterious intelligence at work, and a strength, that goes far beyond any individual ant. Also, unlike other insects, they're not creepy :) However, that said, I do NOT enjoy being bitten, stung or whatever, by red ants, and I did not enjoy the time that my two-year-old sat in a red ant pile in her diaper (and neither did she, obviously.)
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