Spring time heralds the growth and blossoming of many things: dandelions in the yard, ragweed in the air, birds repeatedly bashing their heads into newly cleaned windows. Worms slither up from the soft loamy dirt. Misbehaving cats dash outside to chew up the nice grass, and run back inside to barf it up on carpet. An unmowed yard three houses down from me is currently home to hundreds of snakes, lustily engaging in the process of producing more snakes. Luckily, the snakes have been content with staying put in their serpentine den of iniquity thus far, and have left our premises unmolested (figuratively or literally).

Unlike some creatures, that is.

As mortal enemies, ants and I go way back. They invaded my room when I was seven years old. I can’t remember whether this was because I left food out, being a sloppy little kid, or whether being in the basement had anything to do with it. Whatever the case, it got so bad that I had to work the ants into the plot of my on-going Toyland adventures. Charlie Bear, Flora the mermaid, Pom-Pom and the other denizens of Toyland had wept during the forced evacuation, leaving behind some of the less fortunate Toylanders who couldn’t make it out in time for the mass fumigation. They even felt sorry for the Poo Poo people, the criminal element of the town that lived under the bed (aside: this contingent consisted of my least liked toys, which included Barbies. Though they were a permanent underclass, at least they fared better under my ownership than that of my cousins, who liked to let Barbies melt in the sun).

The horrors of that ant invasion have scarred my psyche forever. Though I know that I am much bigger than a single ant, the sheer numbers in which they aggregate are deeply disturbing. If it were up to me, I’d coat everything in the house in a sheen of Raid. Then I’d wait an hour or two and gleefully sweep up the remains of ant genocide.

Unfortunately, however, what is toxic to ants is 99.9% likely to be toxic to cats. My sister got around this by sprinkling the outside of her house with poison powder, thereby killing the ants before they even entered the house. An elegant solution, but one that won’t work with our furry bastards, whose favorite hobby as mentioned above is to dash outside as often as possible to chomp on that sweet, luscious, nausea-inducing grass. So I can’t very well coat that grass in poison - if they’re dumb enough to eat the grass as is, how will they know to stay away from toxic grass?

What I have done thus far: I have placed several ant death motels smack in the middle of their routes. Convenient, no? Alas, the ants appear to be actively avoiding the motels. I guess the free continental breakfast isn’t enough for these particular ants. I should gussy them up a bit, paint the walls, offer free internet and maybe some ant Skinemax to sweeten the deal.

I have also tried Windexing the ants. This has proven to be surprisingly effective, as the ants just shrivel up and die upon contact. It also makes the windows shiny and clear, further confusing the birds who keep trying to fly into them. It’s not the best solution, since more ants keep risking Windexy death to get at our sweet, delicious honey (now under the witness protection program). If only I could devise a time release Windex dispensing!

Another thing I have tried is sprinkling cayenne pepper along the ant trails. The ants seem to hate this even more than the motels. I watched an ant seem to contemplate whether to jump or ferry over a large patch of the cayenne. It ran out of time before it could decide (ha). I don’t think the cats are stupid enough to eat the cayenne, which is another bonus.

After the next batches of rain, I think I’ll go a little further with this cayenne pepper idea, buy a giant tub of it and construct a cayenne moat. Sure, the neighbors will think we are crazy, but it is East Lawrence and we’ll likely just blend in further.

And at least we don’t have snakes in our yard.

Apologies for the sparseness of this blog - since the beginning of September, my life has been one non-stop whirl of doing things. I am quite grateful that I am not bored and alone these days, resorting to making grocery store trips for the purpose of human interaction (a pathetic note in my life that I can’t seem to find on my blog anymore; hopefully it deleted itself). I am a bit tired, however, and I have another trip coming up - I’m headed off to Houston this weekend to visit my mother.

This past weekend, Krissy planned on going on the Kaw Valley Farm Tour, where you can pay $10 and gain entry to various farms around the area. I decided to tag along and provide the services of my trusty car Bertha. At the very last minute, Andy called us up and asked if he could join. So it was that the three of us drove off east, to gawk at some farm animals and sample their delicious products.

We first visited Landeria Farms, which featured a hundred goats and miscellaneous other wildlife:

Landeria Farms.

Landeria goats multitasking: they are being milked while eating AND eliminating waste!

These goats seemed awfully, I don’t know, alert? This guy in particular appeared to be studying me and my camera. Likely he was debating about whether or not we were edible.

Goat eyes are really strange. According to Wiki, the horizontal pupils may have evolved to enable the goats to see better on mountainous terrain.

I believe one of Krissy’s goals on this trip was to scout out a new addition to her menagerie. She was alarmingly close to sneaking this one into the back of my Corolla.

Andy in the middle of an intimate moment with one of the goats.

We got a tour of the milking and cheese making facilities. The tour included my favorite, free samples! We passed on the milk (”it smells sour,” noted Krissy), but gladly helped ourselves to about ten pounds of delicious goat cheese: fresh chevre, feta, and a wonderfully dynamic Swiss that had been aging since last February.

Kathy, the owner and head cheese honcho of Landeria Farms.

The farm owner showed us around and took us down into an area called the “aging cave,” where she will eventually store the hard cheeses. It’s a climate-controlled basement, humidity fixed, and outfitted with a dumbwaiter to lift the cheeses back up to the surface. We were apparently lucky because the cave is currently under construction; once it is finished and sealed, she won’t let any tourists inside for fear of contamination.

Up the dumbwaiter shaft. Way cooler than the Bat Cave!

After the tour, and after generously sampling the delicious cheeses, we were all quite eager to purchase some to bring home. I was even ready to spend some reserve money I had set aside for purchasing a futon frame on some aged Swiss goodness!

But oddly enough, actually buying the cheese proved to be impossible. “We kind of expected maybe five people to show up,” said Kathy, a bit flustered as she was being bombarded with cheese requests. Eventually she sent one of her help to get a piece of paper to start a mailing list. We had to go hunt down that person, who was confused about why she was getting paper - “Is that for the mailing list?” “Uh, maybe!” I have my doubts as to whether they got our information, so I might have to do even more stalking!

I’m not sure how much it cost to be part of the Farm Tour, and how much preparation she had to have put in for the event or anything, but it had to have been quite the effort. We were a bit baffled as to why, then, nobody prepared for the possibility that people might want to BUY their product. Especially seeing how the farm was featured in the local newspaper the day before, and how much traffic that could potentially bring. It’s nice to see a farm that isn’t profit driven, but man. I wish them well, and I hope they stay in business!

After stuffing more free cheese samples into our greedy maws, we headed off to another farm (the name of which I now forget). This farm wasn’t quite as enjoyable as the last one, but really, how do you compete with people who supply everyone with amazing free cheese?

If you squint, you might see a sleepy puppy in the shade.

Horrible birds, everywhere.

Ahh, fuzzy baby cows. Much better!

That bucket was empty and had fallen over. As soon as I righted it, the cow went over and stuck her head in it. Hey, they’re not bred to be smart!

A pretty little farm cat that solicited me for attention. She looked a little underfed, but maybe that’s because I’m used to my very own whale-cat.

We only went to two farms before we had to go: Krissy had places to be, and I had a futon frame to pick up (seriously. If those goat farm people had let me buy their merchandise, I wouldn’t have had the money for the futon, and therefore would have had more time to explore the farms!).

Next up: Ye Olde Renaissance Festival. Yup, I’m a dork.