It's all about Donna

The Worms Crawl In, the Worms Crawl Out

It would seem that North Texas has been infested with army worms. They can strip a field clean in a matter of hours. Farmers battled them years ago with strong pesticides. Problem is, these same pesticides also wiped out most of the worms’ natural enemies. As a result, they’re out of control. I realize the stat of Texas may not think so, but I do. My property survived a flood. Then it survived drought. It survived cow pen daisies. And now, it has worms. It was looking so good. The Bermuda grass was choking out the weeds and the daisies were under control after countless hours of mowing. Now it has worms. They’ve eaten everything. They’ve grown from little inch-worm looking things, to full-size fat, gluttonous predators. Next will be the moth phase, and the cycle will start all over. There are not enough birds or chickens to eat them all.

The Ants go Marching One by One

We have these unidentified ants. I call them unidentified because for the life of me I cannot identify them. I know. Sounds weird. Anyway, I’ve always called them army ants, even though I suspect nothing of the sort probably exists. These ants are HUGE and they’re red. They have HUGE mounds and are very busy all day long, traveling the great expanses of my pasture. One good thing about them is that they keep the fire ants away. We have this huge mound out back and now two satellites. This evening while taking the dog on walk about, I look down and notice this incredibly long trail from one of the satellites. Simply amazing… one that I can even see it in the moonlight, and two, that ants have walked down this path so many times that there is now a permanent trail. Very amazing indeed.