Jun 15 2009
Ant Farming For Dummies; Or, How Technology Saved Me From Nature
My first guest blogger is my wife, Jan Hudon Zalneraitis. This is NOT fiction.
In the parade of pets that passed through my childhood home, ant farms were frequent - albeit temporary - participants. My mother loved them. Many days we would come home from school to find her rushing around the house, finishing up dishwashing or bed-making. “I wasted half my day watching those ants,” she would admit, shaking her head. “I have to stop.” But the next day, it would be the same story; she was an ant farm addict.
Now, at eighty-four, with many of her previous pursuits proving too taxing, my sister and I try to find activities that she can enjoy on her limited physical and mental energy supplies. We thought an ant farm would be the perfect idea. After much research (for those of you who have not had the experience, ant farming has come a l-o-o-o-n-g way since I was a kid), we ordered a “NASA-inspired” ant “universe”, filled with a blue goop that is advertised as serving as “tunneling medium, food and water source”. The kit is “ants not included”, but comes with a handy “ant catching tool”. You can also order ants separately, but the logistics of coordinating arrival times of both “farm” and “farmers” is tricky. Plus, I had spotted a colony of fat and feisty harvester ants at the far end of the garden. Surely a few of the inhabitants would be happy to relocate to our “space-age universe”.
A few days later, the ant farm arrived. My sister, son, mother, and I all crowded around and tore open the box. This was going to be a real family bonding experience. We “oooh’d” and “aaww’d” over the gel-filled habitat (which really is very pretty) , then searched the box for the ant-catching tool.
“Here it is.” Michael held up a swizzle stick-like object, labeled ant catching tool in microscopic print.
“That’s a stick,” I objected.
“A stick is a tool,” Michael countered.
“Only if you’re a caveman,” I shouted. This family bonding experience was heading downhill already. I relented. “Fine, fine, we’ll give it a try.”
My sister - apparently in possession of an ability to see the future that none of the rest of us were blessed with - excused herself with some lame excuse about “a doctor’s appointment”. It was a beautiful sunny day, the birds were singing, the neighbors sunning themselves and chatting on the other side of the fence. Michael and I settled my mother in her big wicker rocker on the lawn. Michael positioned himself beside her, and I grabbed the ant farm, a paper cup and my trusty swizzle stick/tool and headed into the garden.
I was still unclear on the stick/tool concept. Apparently, so were the ants. I showed it to them - they ignored it. I tried to coax them to climb up it (stick/tool/ladder?) - they ran in the opposite direction.
“Maybe you’re supposed to hit them with it,” Michael suggested. “You know, sorta stun them.” He and my mother both laughed.
“I’m glad you two are enjoying this,” I muttered. I tossed the stick aside, scooped up an ant with the paper cup, uncapped the ant farm, dumped the ant in, and recapped the farm. Score - one ant.
I scooped up another ant, uncapped the farm, and dumped the ant in. Ant #1 scurried up the side of the farm and escaped. Score - still one ant.
I scooped up TWO ants this time. “I’m getting better at this,” I bragged. I uncapped the farm, and dumped the ants in. Ant #2 scurried up the side and escaped. Ant #3 followed ant #2. Ant #4 dashed up my arm, bit me, and dropped to the ground.
“Ow, ow!” I danced around, rubbing my arm, juggling the farm, cover, and paper cup. I dropped the cup and tromped it into the ground, crushing a fledgling tomato plant in the process. Score - zero ants.
“I need something with a lid,” I said.
“You need help,” Michael said.
“No, I’m good,” I said.
He grinned. “That wasn’t an offer, it was an observation.”
I stomped into the house, returning shortly with a lidded cup and a large spoon. My mother -who sometimes can’t remember her own birthday, frowned at me, “Is that one of my good spoons?”
“Of course not, ” I lied.
Michael looked at the cup. “Is that a specimen cup? Gross!”
“It’s not used,” I protested. “It’s all I could find.”
“You know, you can buy ants online,” Michael said.
“I don’t want mail-order ants, I want THESE ants. This’ll work fine now.” A scooped up two ants with the spoon, dropped them into the specimen cup, and capped it. “I’ll catch them all in this,” I said, “then dump them all into the farm at once.”
I scooped up another ant with the spoon, and started to uncap the specimen cup. The two ants inside were crawling towards the top. “Oh, no, you don’t!” I shrieked, shaking the cup, “Stop! Stop! Get down there, get down!”
The voices on the other side of the fence went suddenly quiet. They were no doubt holding a whispered conference, trying to figure out why I was shrieking at my eighty-four-year-old mother, and if the police should be notified. Michael had his head buried in his hands. He murmured something to my mother that sounded like please tell me I’m adopted.
I was in a rhythm now: scoop, dump, shake, shriek. No doubt the ants were suffering traumatic brain injuries, but I was in the zone. Soon, I had six ants. I dumped them into the ant farm. “Ta-da! Six ants!”
“It’ll be dark soon,” Michael said. That was code for at this rate, it’ll be midnight before you catch twenty-five of those suckers. “Can I make a suggestion?”
I scowled. “What?”
“Instead of trying to scoop up the ants by themselves, why don’t you scoop up ants and dirt? It’ll be much quicker. Then we’ll put the cup in the fridge, slow the ants down a little, then sift them out.”
I raised my eyebrows. “That’s a really good idea. How did you think of that?”
“RTFM.”
“Huh?”
“Michael held up the instruction booklet. “Read The Freakin’ Manual.”
I scooped up spoonfuls of dirt and ants, filling the cup in less than a minute. “That was a great idea!”
“How many do you think you have in there?” Michael asked.
I squinted at the cup. “Maybe a dozen, plus the six in the farm already. That’s eighteen.”
“That’s not-” Michael said. I narrowed my eyes at him. “-far from twenty-five.”
My mother patted his head. “Such a smart boy.”
“That should do it,” I said. “Let’s get these guys chillin’ out.” I turned to gather up the ant farm. The six ants inside were all laying on their backs, their tiny ant legs poking up in the air. “They’re dead! This isn’t working at all!” I wrenched the lid off the cup and dumped the ants and dirt back into the garden. “No sense putting ants in this thing if they’re going to die in twenty minutes! NASA-inspired, space-age universe! What a rip-off!”
I jerked the cover off the ant farm, preparing to dispose of the carcasses. The six ants sprang to life, scurried up the sides of the farm, and dashed to freedom.
“Wait! Wait! Come back!” I shouted.
Michael and my mother howled with laughter. “Mom,” Michael gasped, “you were just outsmarted by a bunch of ants.”
I heaved a huge sigh and dropped the ant farm. “I know,” I said. “I give up.”
Michael walked over and put his arm around my shoulder. “I have two words for you Mom: Amazon and PayPal.”
The ants will be here by Thursday.
