TO BUGS BUNNY

HAPPY BIRTHDAY
TO
BUGS BUNNY

I heard that yesterday my beloved cartoon rabbit was 70 years old.
Which makes me wonder - how many gray hairs does Bugs have, and how many gray hairs does an old hare have to have to be an old hare.
Which makes me also wonder - how many carrets has the old hare eaten in his life - and how many times has he said that famous line "What's up, Doc?" and how many times has Elmer Fudd called Bugs a "Wasal-ly Wabbit".
We have lots of rabbits here at the Tumbleweed Crossing but so far none have showed any relationship to dear, old Bugs Bunny. "Drats"
I say Bugs is my favorite but then again maybe it's The Roadrunner, or maybe it's Wile E. Coyote, or maybe it's Speedy Gonzales and Pepe La Pue. And who could forget Taz - The Tazmanian Devil.
The new cartoons just can't compare.

Ants & Chickens

One reader said that her chickens eat the ants. That is good to hear. I have been thinking about getting some chickens. I know they will eat lots of bugs but didn't think they would eat the ants that bite so hard.
Now to be able to aford to build a chicken coop.

Invasion of the Ants

We finally cooled off some and had a bit of rain. Only about a quarter of an inch but it was enough for the 'Invasion of the Ants'.

The rain caused the ants to swarm. Have you ever seen an ant bed swarm? That is when all the ants that want to be queens grow wings and come swarming out of the hole to find and set up their own ant beds, or holes. This is most common after a rain. I had seen it happen with some of the smaller ants that we have all over here but this was the first time I saw one of the big, black, biting ants do it. They are about a quarter of an inch long or maybe a little more. We have red ones and black ones and they hurt worse than a bee sting when they bite. They are really bad about climbing up the inside of someone's pants leg when working in the garden and taking a bit out of the tinder part of your leg when they start getting squized between you and your pants. Anyway this bed decided to swarm right outside of my hayshed under my nicest shade tree. I walked out to feed the horses and saw the ground was black and moving. And flying. There was a sort of circle of ants about 12 to 14 feet around and across. It was kind of horrifying like a horror movie and I didn't think to take a photo. We could only think how to kill them before they got into the hay and over on the horses. I used the water hose and hubby used his big push broom to sweep them into a wet pile and not having any kind of ant spray Lee poured some left over chainsaw gas on the pile of wiggling ants. Of course this took about a hour of hard work. there were still plenty of the little devils flying around while we were working and even afterward. Hubby shoveled the pile of wet, gas soaked ants and dirt into a trash sack to wait for trash day. It was all we could think to do. They were coming out of a crack in the ground near the shade tree where I didn't even know there was an ant bed. I try to keep a handle on those kind of ants using a product called Amdro that is a poison you sprinkle on the bed. I don't like using any kind of chemical but on the big ants, sometimes called fire ants because of how bad the stings are I do use the Amdro. Anyway we did kill most of the ants and haven't found any trying to make homes in the hay but did see a few starting beds in our dirt driveway and I gave them a dose of Amdro.

A week before I had dosed about 10 beds just on the border of our property as the ants had started invading the horses feed areas to steal hay for food and to line their nests with.

I am hoping it doesn't happen again. I saw a couple of the little ants swarming some but it was so minor in comparison that I just ignored them.

Fly Preditors

Rising Rainbow says she loves fly preditors and they are her best friends at this time of the year. I totally agree. If you don't know about these tiny little bugs they lay their eggs on the fly larve and their larve eat the fly larve. For more information or to order some go to www.spaldinglabs.com. or google fly preditors or spalding labs. If you are ordering from spalding labs for the first time please give them my name. Barbara Borror. Also some of the feed stores sell them and you can order through some sites like www.horse.com where horse supplies are sold. If you havn't tried them to so You will be amazed at how well they work. Also, good for dog kennels.

Ants & Flies

Still hot. You know it's really bad when the tumbleweed start dieing due to the lack of water.

I sent a long hour today wandering and crisscrossing my property and going around the outside edges to kill out all the ant beds I could find. the ones I am after are the big black ant and big red ants that sting so hard. Each year they decide they need to line their nests with pieces of hay that are left behind by the horses and start invading the horses eating areas and feeders. And of course the horses don't like to be stung by those horrid critters any more than I do.
Ants are the only thing I use a cimicial on to kill. I use a product called Amdro. It is the only thing I have found that works. I found about 10 big beds just on the edges of the property as no one else around here seems to fight them. Just as they don't fight the flies either. Which of couse means that have more flies than I should even though I fight them.
I use fly preditors as well as fly traps for the flies and make my own fly spray for the horses out of viniger and Skin so Soft from Avon. It actually works better than the commercial cimical kind.

Wonderin' Words

I have been devoting my other blog Wonderin'Word (see links) to writing my life and my family history. I'm not sure why, don't figure many are going to want to read it, but I now have most of it finished. I have been working on it since I was in high school and had to do a paper on it then. I have interviewed relitives, and friends and checked facts with my sister and the internet. I have added links to as much information as I could find when I figured there might be something about the subject on the net. Especially the tourist places that we visited when we were traveling.

So if you think you might be intereted take a look.

Hot Weather

It's hot, I guess it is hot everywhere. We could use some of the rain that is flooding out other areas of the US. But don't think we are likley to get it. I can watch the rain clouds come in and the rain going down the Rio Grande River and over part of Albuquerque but it doens't come to see us here on the desert west of Rio Rancho. It has been hitting 100 degrees almost every day for the past two weeks.

So I have been doing more on my family history.

Update on Birds

And update on the birds nesting in the bull's skull. Yesterday I got a peek at a tiny baby bird in the nest. I didn't stay long as didn't want to bother the parents.