And the ants go marching

Definitely not two by two! More like a thousand by a thousand!

As you know, we've arrived in Florida for the winter. It's a lot of work for the first week, then it's 7 months of fun basically.

Here's an update of progress. As you may know, everything we bring with us from Michigan has to be packed in plastic tubs with lids as the back of the truck, under the tonneau cover, isn't waterproof. So, ah damn it I'm smacking myself here! I had meant to take a picture of the back of the truck before unloading it. I guess the torrential downpour in which we offloaded the stuff drove that from my mind! I wanted the exact configuration of the tubs in a picture to facilitate easier packing in the spring! Ah well, such is life. We had 3 large crates and 2 small crates plus golf clubs and space bags, and tons of other things in the back of the truck. Inside, we had one very large crate and one smaller one plus a myriad of other things that we just couldn't chance going in the back.

So, Monday, day one, we took every single thing out of the truck and stacked it hither and yon in the trailer. We began cleaning and unpacking. As the piles lessened, we discovered water damage on the lanai. Found out it was caused by blocked gutters. They need cleaning out but we only have a 6 foot ladder. Me, being on the rather short side, has to stand on the very top of the ladder to get to the gutters. Um, I don't think so Tim! Last thing I need is a broken hip or worse from falling off the ladder. Add a trip to Lowe's to buy an 8 foot ladder to the list of things to do. Oh yes, also 12 tubes of caulk, a can of Kilz, mold cleaner so I can wash the ceilings in the lanai and our bedroom. It seemed the more I did, the further behind I got! We worked our tushies off on Monday and rewarded ourselves with a lovely meal at Outback. That
Wallaby Darned sure tasted good! This is Outback's description of my favorite frozen concoction. "The famous Australian peach bellini. Tickle your tongue with this frosty combination of peaches, champagne, Smirnoff Vodka and DeKuyper Peachtree Schnapps." I say Yum!

Tuesday I'd planned to go play cards in the evening so wanted to get everything done. Ya, that happened! Got a lot of things unpacked. Every single thing food related has to go into Tupperware as we get tiny little ants here. They can get into unopened packages of cereal, crackers, anything at all. I have a few screw top plastic containers that we use also. It is time consuming to do, but if it keeps those ants at bay, I'm all for it. The rest of Tuesday and Wednesday is a blur. The only thing I remember is calling the bug guy on Wednesday and scheduling an appointment for Thursday morning to spray for bugs. Ants in particular. This meant that now we had to take everything from under the kitchen sink, and the bathroom sink. We just put it all in 3 of the large tubs that we'd already unpacked. There are 3 cupboards beneath my kitchen sink and that's where I keep all my pots and pans and bowls and just everything! Three cabinets also under the bathroom sink, equally full of necessities. Talk about 2 steps forward and 3 back. We had more stuff in crates now than we did when we first got here!

It's now Thursday, still with me? Bug guy showed up around 9 or 10 I guess. He did his job and that meant we had to keep Pixie out of the trailer for about an hour after he left. We went for our first cart ride of the winter! I do adore going for a golf cart journey every day. It was just lovely. Saw lots of alligators, turtles, and sea birds. Good stuff. Came home and got ready to go to town to get the ladder, etc. Started out at Bed, Bath, & Beyond followed by Lowe's. Rounded out the trip with a visit to Wal-Mart and then my favorite grocery store here, Sweet Bay. Got some lovely pork chops as I had a package of shake and bake to use. Back home just in time to take care of the stuff and have a quick bite to eat and I finally got to go play cards for the first time! Do love my card games at night! I got back about 8:20 so we decided to watch Survivor and just catch the first 20 minutes later on. I was recording it you see.

Now, finally, to the subject of this blog. I was feeling a bit snackish. I got out the container of potato chips. I'd dutifully put them in a plastic screw top container to keep the beasties out. I was nibbling away and watching Survivor when I noticed specs on the lid of the container. Ants! I'd been eating the chips for at least 10 minutes now. How many ants had I digested??? I had a mouth full of chips at that time and had to stop and think. Do I swallow or spit? Figured they were dead by now so went with swallow. Kept me from having to get out of the chair at least! Those damn ants had gotten into a screw top container!!! Went to the pantry and looked and the only thing not in Tupperware was my Shake and Bake. Yep, full of ants. I've now got pork chops with no shake stuff! I checked around and didn't seem to see anymore infected items. I put the brown sugar in the freezer to be safe as that was in a screw top container also. Guess I'll just have to stick with air tight, water tight, Tupperware from now on! I put out my faithful Terro ant killer and that should do the trick. Frustrating to say the least! Take all the precautions and still get infested! At least if I see more in a few days I can call the bug guy to come back as his work is guaranteed. He can put out some gel baits or something.

It's 5AM Friday morning. I wonder what today will bring??