8:37 p.m. - 2003-05-22
Termites
Hi! We have termites!!
"If you dug up every termite that lives on our property, it would fill up the back of my truck two or three times!" says Bruce. Isn't that such a happy thought? Evidently termite colonies are quite large. And they are centrally located upwards of ten feet under the ground. "They lead deep, dark, remote lives." Bruce informs me in a sinister tone.
Except of course, when they are hanging around in the side garden next to our house.
We can't figure it out. I was digging around yesterday in an area where I have dug around before, and there were all these little light coloured, larvae looking things that I have never seen before. They weren't really doing anything, they just seemed to be hanging around.
Interestingly, I immediately knew they were termites. Call it feminine intuition, or perhaps my strong belief that anything that can go wrong will go wrong, but I knew.
I usually try to say something happy to Bruce when he gets home since I know he's had a long and arduous day of staring down microscopes and telling students that no, they cannot have an A simply because they showed up for three classes. But yesterday all I could force out was "Hi, we have termites."
"Of course we do." he said, looking nonchalant. "This is the deep South, and we have an acre of woodland. It's completely insane to think that we wouldn't have termites. They're probably in every old log on the property."
"No, actually, they're in the side garden." I must confess, I felt irritated. I was having such a happy gardening day and finally feeling that I was taming the jungle, and here were these little wood eating things to ruin my day. We went out to the side garden and stared at them. Then Bruce went in to look up termites on the internet and make sure that's what they really were, and sadly, it was.
And then we both went and stared at them some more.
They aren't in the house, as far as we can tell. Our house is brick sealed to a cement slab, and there is no evidence of anywhere they could be getting in. And they definately weren't there a week ago, which is the last time I was digging in the area, or any of the many other times that I've dug around there. In fact, the place has been overrun with ants, which are the natural enemies of termites.
We have this hypothesis that having 15 inches of rain in the last two weeks has flooded their very deep tunnel system, and maybe they have just temporarily fled up to the surface. A few people we've talked to have said that seeing the worker termites on the surface is very unusual and this is totally the wrong time of year for them to be swarming, so flooded tunnels is a good hypothesis.
I hate to call the pest control people because they'll just put huge amounts of hideous poisons down which probably won't kill the colony anyway. It'll just cut it back and away from our house, and kill a bunch of other insects, etc, in the process.
And you know, even if they are in our house, which I very much doubt, they work very slowly. I think we have a couple of weeks to investigate this and make some kind of rational decision.
You know, just call me goofy, but I just don't feel worried about them. I think I feel like they are just part of nature and it'll be very hard for them to get inside and maybe I should just corral a few of the Slimy Salamanders into going over there and eating a whole buncha' them termites. Yeah! That's what I'll do! And I'll dig up a few ant colonies and put them over there, too!! And I can watch ant versus termite wrestling!! And all our friends will come over and drink beer and bet on ants versus termites!!! Yeah! Termite wrestling party!!
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