So, at the park the other day my kids got into a huge swarm of fire ants. Jack actually went over there first, and Sam of course followed him over. The key was that Sam put his hands on the tree stump they were swarming on to balance himself, thus he got them all over his hands, whereas Jack was standing at it took a little longer for them to climb up his legs. Jack screamed and Keith and I ran over there, both grabbed a child, stripped them, slapped off ants, killed ants, and generally did the best we could. Jack came out relatively unscathed, he has about six ant bites on his legs. Sam has like 17 on one hand, and about 10 on the other. The worse hand has one on every knuckle and between every finger. If you have ever seen fire ant bites, you know that after about a day they form these little pustules on the top of the red bite, which I read online that you are NOT SUPPOSED TO POP even if you want to (and I do).
So, today we went to the Sugar Land branch of the Houston Children's Museum that is set up only for the summer months. Now, I am not trying to sound snobby but most people in Sugar Land and this area seem pretty darn well off if you ask me. So, there are a lot of Polo-laden kids at this Museum and very well dressed moms in heels. I take Sam into the tots section, where he happily plays. SEVERAL times I saw people glance down at his hands. You know they were thinking, "My God, this kid has leprosy!" Or, at the very very least chicken pox. I felt bad. I really wanted to make a sign that said he just had ant bites to ease their troubled minds. I know if I was in their shoes I wouldn't have wanted some poor diseased child touching everything my kid was going to be playing with. Rest easy people, it's nothing you can catch.
3 comments:
Maybe these are some of the same Sugar Land people that were in the YMCA when Jack walked in telling that story in a previous blog entry!!
You can kill fire ants with aspartame or orange juice and repel them with baby powder - Learn how to kill pests without killing yourself or the earth......
There are about 50 to 60 million insect species on earth - we have named only about 1 million and there are only about 1 thousand pest species - already over 50% of these thousand pests are already resistant to our volatile, dangerous, synthetic pesticide POISONS. We accidentally lose about 25,000 to 100,000 species of insects, plants and animals every year due to "man's footprint". But, after poisoning the entire world and contaminating every living thing for over 60 years with these dangerous and ineffective pesticide POISONS we have not even controlled much less eliminated even one pest species and every year we use/misuse more and more pesticide POISONS to try to "keep up"! Even with all of this expensive and unnecessary pollution - we lose more and more crops and lives to these thousand pests every year.
We are losing the war against these thousand pests mainly because we insist on using only synthetic pesticide POISONS and fertilizers There has been a severe "knowledge drought" - a worldwide decline in agricultural R&D, especially in production research and safe, more effective pest control since the advent of synthetic pesticide POISONS and fertilizers. Today we are like lemmings running to the sea insisting that is the "right way". The greatest challenge facing humanity this century is the necessity for us to double our global food production with less land, less water, less nutrients, less science, frequent droughts, more and more contamination and ever-increasing pest damage.
National Poison Prevention Week, March 18-24,2007 was created to highlight the dangers of poisoning and how to prevent it. One study shows that about 70,000 children in the USA were involved in common household pesticide-related (acute) poisonings or exposures in 2004. At least two peer-reviewed studies have described associations between autism rates and pesticides (D'Amelio et al 2005; Roberts EM et al 2007 in EHP). It is estimated that 300,000 farm workers suffer acute pesticide poisoning each year just in the United States - No one is checking chronic contamination.
In order to try to help "stem the tide", I have just finished re-writing my IPM encyclopedia entitled: THE BEST CONTROL II, that contains over 2,800 safe and far more effective alternatives to pesticide POISONS. This latest copyrighted work is about 1,800 pages in length and is now being updated at my new website at http://www.thebestcontrol2.com .
This new website at http://www.thebestcontrol2.com has been basically updated; all we have left to update is Chapter 39 and to renumber the pages. All of these copyrighted items are free for you to read and/or download. There is simply no need to POISON yourself or your family or to have any pest problems.
Stephen L. Tvedten
2530 Hayes Street
Marne, Michigan 49435
1-616-677-1261
When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, he will either quit being mistaken or cease to be honest.
Well, THAT was interesting!
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