My name is US Grant I’m a banana squash. When I first began to understand
crow language correctly, there was an incident that happened across the street
in a log house that sits on the rise just above the Weber River in Weber
County, Ogden, Utah. The log house has
been empty ever since a neighbor the owner on his way to a job interview, shut
the door, closed the curtains. As best I remember, it has a plank roof, nothing
between the plank roof and a dirt floor. Just one room no more, and big red Army
Ants inside and out. A hand tip to remember is if they see you tuck in your
pant legs, because they will start streaming across the room toward you. You
know trouble is afoot on many, many feet actually. You know this partly because
seconds after stepping into the room you’ll likely see a raiding column of
female ants on the hunt for prey. Trailing behind are the male inceptions. Clearly
this is not going to have a happy ending. Army Ants are predatory ants, fast
numerous, and they are living a purpose driven life. The purpose being to kill.
Sure enough within a few minutes hundreds of termites bite the dust. Next up on
the ants list for this particular day is Soybean Aphids, chiggers, ticks most anything
will do. Protection against these ants is absolutely necessary or you end up a
color plate in the textbook of dermatology. At all hours you can step into a
swarm of the Red Army ants boiling out across the floor and even underneath the
floor in the Nazis style goose-step march. A tomato horn worm, a large green
caterpillar that if it hadn’t been eaten from the inside out, would have grown
up to be a Carolina sphinx moth.
Inside the dour room, there is often to be
seen a spotted ant bird staring at the dirt floor. Step back out of the swarm, and start looking
for the characteristic flitting and popping of the thrush-size Ant Bird, listen
for its vibrato peeee-ti peewee, because whenever there are big red army ants
out on a hunting raid, puckish Ant Birds are sure to follow, they have good
binoculars looking for insects with their camera eyes making orphans thereafter
never seen in church, crossing a landscape. .
Ant Birds skim off a percentage of the ant’s labor by snatching up
grasshoppers, beetles, and other leftovers of the predatory red ants. It’s the
reversal of the commonly held notion of parasites being little tacky things
that plague large poorly dressed hosts. Here the big vertebrates are being
killed off by insects a fraction of their size.
And the parasitic strategy is so irresistible that according to research
in the Bug Journal the Spotted Ant Bird antics, may be taking it professionally
all the way to the Hall Of Fame. Whereas, the species has traditionally opted
for a mixed approach, filching from ant swarms and also finding food on its
own. It is increasingly dependent on army ants to scare up it’s every meal.
Life in a gutter
thrives in less than pristine urban water, including the Hornworm, which is
exactly what it sounds like. In the entry way a horrifying number of parasitic
wasp larvae, tiny translucent wormy things can be seen tunneling through the
skin of their hos. Man, this is really a weird gig; weirder still is the fact
that the gig isn’t even a live action movie but rather animated reality. No
music is necessary for all of this to ruin your lunch but the cheery Latin Brass
and Drums Rancheros music does somewhat enhance the pageantry of the parasitic
Army Ant infestation.
If you
stumbled upon this cabin site by mistake, of course, the availability of an exterminator
might be comforting. The Ace Exterminator Company does promise same day
service. You might hire the exterminator to take out the Armadillos. Armadillos
transmit the pathogen Mycobacterium leprous.
From
the beginning the cabin has had quirks, like an outhouse, a three setter with a
mini hole for a child, and a knot hole in the center of the roof where you
could dangle a hand down in it and scare the heck out of guests.
Well,
one fine Sunday day morning I was out sun’ with Cry Baby in my yard with, named
her after my X. I was takin’ in the sun, looking at the beautiful orange
colored Wasatch Mountains, listening to the quakes rustling leaves, a few blue
hazy clouds hanging above the mountains, and thinking of my childhood home
yonder in Denver, when suddenly a crow name is Doug Allen came flying by out of
the blue. He lit on the roof of the abandoned house and says to me,
"Hello, U.S. I reckon I've struck
something."
As he spoke, a
walnut dropped out of his mouth and rolled down the roof, but he didn't seem to
care, his eyes were glued on that knot-hole in the middle of the roof. Soon He
cocked his head to one side, shut one eye and put the other to the hole looking
like a cross-eyed raccoon peeking down a chimney. Then he glanced up with
bright eyes, gave a wink or two and gave his wings a little flutter which means
satisfaction in crow language. Then he says,
"It looks
like a knot-hole, it lies like a knot- it must be a knot hole."
Then
he cocked his head down and took another gander, and then he glances up,
perfectly joyful. He walks around the knot-hole three times to the left one eye
on the hole, then flapped his wings, glided down to the ground picked up the
walnut and hurried back then dropped the walnut in. All of a sudden he was
paralyzed into a listening countenance, and the queerest look of surprise took
his face.
"Why, I didn't hear that walnut hit the
floor."
He cocked his eye again at the hole and
took another look, while scratching the back of his head with his right foot.
Then he says,
"Well,
it's too much for me, that's for sure...must be a might long way down. However
I haven't got time to waste, I'll go fetch another walnut so as to see what's
what."
Again he dropped a walnut in and tried to
flirt his eye to the hole quick enough to see what become of it, but once more
he was too late. He held his eye there as much as five minutes, then raised up
and sighted at the sky again, and says,
"Darn, I don't
seem to understand this thing no how, but, I'll try her again. “
He
fetched another walnut, and did his level best to see what become of it, but he
couldn't.
"Well I never seen a hole like this one,
must be a new kind." About this time his feelings began to get the best of him, and he broke loose cussing and stomp’in about on the rim of the roof. When he finally settles down and near had control of himself, he walks up to the hole and peers in again for a minute or two.
“Why, I know how to take care of this little problem. You're a long hole, a deep hole, a singular hole all together. I've started in to fill you and I'll be dammed if I don’t fill yu even if it takes a hundred years."
With
that said, away he went for more walnuts. You never seen a bird work like that.
He laid into it like an illegal Mexican with a family to support back home. He
throwed walnuts in that hole for four whole hours or more never even stopped
for lunch or took a break. He'd just hove'em in and go for more.
At last, he couldn't flop his wings. He was
all tuckered out. He slid off the roof on his back, exhausted, falling to the
ground, sweating like a sun-burnt midget in the out-back. To top it off was sitting
on medusa head. It is a spiky, grass like plant inedible for livestock and
wildlife. it’s all over the place and causing big problems, getting terrible.
Crowding out native grasses and grazing land. To help reduce the spread controlled
burning, and grazing during the annual weed’s early life helps slow its spread.
It stays on the ground for years posing a wildfire risk besides, a losing
battle all over the West, I would say. Doug still sitting on a medusa head pad barely had enough strength to lean back against the log house. Then he mumbles, "I'm going to need some help."
Just
then another crow was going by, Stan Jacobson. He noticed Doug lying there half
conscious. Stan hurried a landing and asked if he needed a doctor. The suffered
told the whole circumstance.
"There yonders the hole. If you don't
believe me go look you yourself."
So Stan
flew up and took a look, then comes back and asks,
"How many did you say you put in there,
Doug?"
"Not less than two ton."
Stan
went and looked again. He couldn't make it out either so he gave a few loud
caws and five crows came. They all stood around in a circle list nun while Doug
told the whole story. Then all the crows discussed it Roberts Rules of Order
like, and each one got off as many knuckleheaded inconsistent opinions as
incumbents do. A motion on the floor to accept the majority vote was made by
Bill Arnold, and seconded by Glen Anderson. The majority vote decided to caw in
more crows to gather walnuts. Soon the whole sky was black. There must have been 10,000
crows brawling, jawin, disputin, cussin, and making my place a poopy mess. For
two whole days they dropped walnuts in the knot hole trying to fill it, but had
no success.
At
last one old wise crow by the name of John Stone started snooping around. The
door was standing a crack open caused by all those walnuts inside. As he
happened to light on the rusty door knob he took a look in. Of course, that
solved the sixty4-four dollar question right then and there.
“Come
here,” John says, “Come here everybody."
They
all come swooping down, and as each lit around the door, they took a glance at
the half-filled room of walnuts and army ants. The whole absurdity hit home. John
fell over backward almost suffocating with laughter and the lady crow next to
him. There's no sense in saying a crow doesn’t have a sense of humor, or crows
aren't on an equal to squash, except they have feathers and don't go to church.
Two
days later, while everyone was still fun’in, down the street came a
neighborhood butter cup squash Nosey Mary who lives in Dirt City just a few
blocks up the road, as does other critters. Nosy Mary took a look inside and said,
"This isn't funny."
Bye
and bye all the crows agreed, and one by one flew back to Mountain Home or from
whence they came.
