A DESERTED CABIN
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 cabin.
It is settled on the rise in the big bend above the Weber River in Ogden,
Utah. The log cabin has been empty ever
since the owner closed the curtains shut the door, and left for a job interview.
I specter the job was his. At best I, it has a plank roof, nothing between the
plank roof and a floor. Just one room no more, and mean time big red Army Ants
inside and out took over. A handy tip to remember is if they see you best tuck
in your pant legs, because they start streaming across the room forward. You
know trouble is afoot on many, many feet. 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 live a purpose driven life, the purpose to kill. Sure enough within a
few minutes hundreds of termites bite the dust. Next up on the ants list most days
is soybeans, aphids, chiggers, ticks most anything everywhere. Protection
against these ants is absolutely necessary or you end up a color plate in the
textbook of dermatology. You can step into a swarm of the Red Army ants boiling
out across the floor and underneath the floor in the Nazis style goose-step
march. Next a TOMATO THORN 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, are often Spotted Ant birds staring at the dirt floor. Step up and look 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 raids.
Puckish Spotted Ant Birds are sure to follow. They have camera eyes that are
good for spotting insects left behind by rushing Red Ants. Eating them thus
making orphans of their children thereafter never seen in church. Ant Birds skim off a fair percentage of the
ant’s labor by snatching up grasshoppers, beetles, and other leftovers. It’s
the reversal of the commonly held notion of parasites being little tacky things
that plague large poorly dressed hosts. Here the bigger 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, 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 its every meal. Life in a
gutter outside the cabin thrives in less than pristine urban water, including
the Hornworm, which is exactly what it looks 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 hosts, Man, this is really a weird
gig; weirder still is the fact that the gig isn’t even a live action movie but
rather animal 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
Another quirk the former owner told me, is
a knot hole in the center of the cabin 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’ in my yard with, with my cat Cry Baby named
her after my X. I was taken’ in the sun, looking at the beautiful orange
colored Wasatch Mountains, listening to the quakes rustling leaves, and
watching a few blue hazy clouds hanging above the mountains. I was thinking of
my childhood home yonder in Denver, when suddenly a crow came flying by out of
the blue. He lit on the roof of the abandoned house and says to me,
"Hello, 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 fluttered his wings which mean 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 peek, 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 hurried back 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 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 was all tuckered,
slid off the roof on his back, falling to the ground, sweating like a sun-burnt
midget in the out-back.
To top it
off he was sitting on a 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. Worse than army ants. Crowding out native grasses and grazing
land. Its seeds can stay on the ground
for years poising a wildfire risk besides, a losing battle all over the West.
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."
To be continued tomorrow...
DR.KARL WALLACE D.D.S.
To read more Karl Wallace writings please go to:
w.w.w.karlwallaceblog.blogspot.com
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