Smiley and the Ant Farm

You might remember reading about Smiley being swarmed by angry ants at a picnic two years ago. That's led Smiley to have a deep fear of ants and a fierce determination to stomp on them before they gang up on him again. It's calmed down now that some time has passed, but last summer it wasn't unusual for him to bring a walk to a stop just so he could have his revenge against some poor ant scout that caught his eye.

Anyhow, Lisa decided to buy him an ant farm from Target's $1 section. I'm not sure how this came about, but it was a dang good idea. One day last week Smiley and I went in the front yard and caught six or seven ants.



It was shocking how cool Smiley was with the whole process, letting the ants run around his hand while I got the cover open, then picking them up between his fingers and dropping them in. Plus he seemed to take some advice to heart. I told him to give up sifting through the grass for the ants and let them come to him. "Movement betrays motion," I said, quoting some movie line that's stuck with me for 25 years. He gauged the wisdom of this, nodded, then waited for an impatient ant to reveal itself by darting forward before swooping in for the capture.

Naturally he dropped the farm in the house, releasing the ants. No biggie, we just went out and found ourselves a new batch. As of this writing the second crop is still alive and well and scurrying in their home on our mantle.