
Flight of the Fire Ants - drjohnson
https://edgelands.substack.com/p/flight-of-the-fire-ants
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tasty_freeze
I've lived in Austin for about 15 years now. One of my jobs around the house
is to do mowing and other yard work on our 3.5 acres. So what I'm saying is
I've spent a lot of time in the yard and grass and cutting brush.

Fire ants don't bother me at all. As soon as they start biting and you can
take corrective action.

The thing that I hate far more are chiggers [1]. They climb to the tops of
blades of grass and wait for a host mammal to brush against them, then they
hop aboard. They start climbing up your leg, but they are so microscopic you
can't feel them at all. They climb as high as they can, but when the hit an
obstruction they don't waste time trying and then burrow into your skin, using
enzymes to help dissolve their way in. They feed on skin for a few hours then
drop off and hope to complete the next stage of their life-cycle, even before
you are aware they were there.

It is common to do yard work and the next morning have a dozen or more itchy,
swollen red bumps at the underwear line. They remain itchy for days, far worse
than fire ant bites (at least for me).

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trombiculidae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trombiculidae)

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chrisbennet
I was shooting my brothers brand new shotgun (1) ("here, try this") when I
backed up and stepped on a fire ant hill. I was getting stung but I didn't
know how to make the gun safe so I couldn't just drop it. My brother had to
run to my aid and take it. Its funny now but certainly not at the time.

I _hate_ fire ants.

(1) We shot skeet for 6 days in a row! Happy times.

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msisk6
My wife and I had a small ranch just north of Austin and had a ton of fire
ants. Often when clearing a field with the tractor and a brush cutter I'd hit
a mound of fire ants. If the wind was just right they'd blow right into my
face. Lots of fun.

We have since moved north and I was just commenting to my wife how tame it is
here without the rattlesnakes, fire ants, and killer bees. Don't miss that
time a rattlesnake got into the house one night.

Texas sure isn't boring.

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esaym
Heh, he mentioned the bracken bat cave. I came here just to post that. I
noticed it one time while looking at some "un-qc'd" radar:
[https://imgur.com/a/rQzgYcx](https://imgur.com/a/rQzgYcx)

Basically you see it start as a small red dot, then turning into a larger
yellow dot, followed by a green blob that covers a large part of San Antonio
and dances around for about 8 hours before going back into the cave.

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DoofusOfDeath
Every time I read a story like this, I have a strong urge to move 10-20
degrees further from the equator.

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briefcomment
I read that as "Flight of the Fine Arts". I guess "r" is just a subset of "n",
so they're easy enough to switch up if you're not paying close attention,
especially if they're both in the same phrase, and if the switched up phrase
is more common.

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pks016
Not surprising. I have worked with different ant sp. where males fly to mate.

