Ants ...

Ants here come in a huge variety of sizes.  While we have not yet seen any as large as the carpenter ants found in the mountain areas of Nevada and Colorado, the one in the back yard are quite large.  Size, though, does not dictate aggressiveness.  In fact, we have found that the small ones can become, quickly, the most frightening.

It all began on Wednesday around noon.  Tom made it home for lunch, and as soon as he was leaving the house we spied a huge swarm of ants on the front planters.  They were munching on live grasshoppers.  As we looked closer, it became a living horror picture!  There was a column, well over 1" wide moving down the gutter pictured behind the planter here:

This is the front door, and where we could see ants swarming up the walls, and beginning to come into the vestibule:

Tom made the mistake of stepping over the planter onto this grassy area to get a better idea of what was going on.  What he didn't realize until his shoes were covered with ants is that the column was only going into and out of the grass.  The entire grass was swarming with ants.

We tracked them back out to the sidewalk that goes past Mary's bedroom window.  They were coming out of several holes .. it was truly frightening.

Tom emailed as soon as he got to the office, and the KCM Hygiene unit came out and sprayed.  By the time they arrived I had already used up a can of creepy, crawly bug spray to keep them from going further into the vestibule.  The man spraying, though, was still gettin

And no, there are not ants visible to the eye in these photos.  They were taken today.  Quite honestly, the thought "I'll grab the camera" was not what came to me when we saw all the activity.

And as far as the ants in the backyard?  They have grown much, much worse.  Our gardener was getting covered just by standing on the grass by the pool.  

Fortunately, early in the morning they are dormant, when we take the walk down to see how much the "rain gauge" has risen over night.