Not this season.
The ants came and came and came again. Waves of them, dense, thick, black, indefatigable.
Normally, and when I say normally, I mean, before becoming this crazy pregnant heifer person who is even more-so concerned about these things, I prefer to use nontoxic and organic methods of pest control. The less toxic, the better. But when I went online yesterday morning to research what to do when the borax fails, and saw the extent to which ant fighting has to become, let us just say, A LIFESTYLE, well, I caved.
I went to my source for all things perfectionistic, paranoid, overthought, and extremely well-researched, the Berkeley Parents Network for exterminator recommendations. Not trying to sound like a shill here. This is really where I go. A lot.
So I called one of the companies, and I grilled the guy. He swore the product was safe, that in addition to not harming us or our unborn child, it wouldn’t render our fruit trees inorganic. Not sure about that piece since it’s synthetic pyrethrin. But the concentration is very low too. Only toxic to ants, and termites.
I called, he came, I left, he sprayed. By the way, he was quite a handsome exterminator, like a young Dennis Quaid, with slick hipster shades and a spiffy oxford shirt. Not normally what you think a professional poison handler would look like. I picture more of this kind of guy, or this.
Today we are ant-free. It’s not my most favorite way of dealing with the problem, but I have to admit the relief of not encountering ants today is huge. I mean, not only were the daily army attacks rather, ummm… inconvenient, but I was also constantly finding them on my clothes, on my person. Some even swarmed my foot during dinner one night and bit me.
In other news, the boy is just this moment trying to kick his way out from under the lower section of my belly. Very entertaining.