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They're baaaack!  

stardust81937 86M
4342 posts
6/29/2012 4:50 am
They're baaaack!

THEY'RE BAAAACK!

Before I moved to the Mohave Desert, I heard all sorts of incorrect garbage about trying to live out here...
Many people when asking about this area from a perspective of never having even been out to the desert, and certainly never having lived here, want to know about the rattlesnakes and scorpions.

Yes, we have both. During the first year I was on this property in 1976, I probably killed 100 sidewinders--sidewinders are small rattlesnakes about 28 to 40 inches long that live in sandy areas and use a sidewinding motion when moving from one place to another. Sidewinders can't dig burrows in the sand, but they live in burrows they've found that used to house kangeroo rats, field mice, or ground-squirrels that the snake probably had for a nice juicy meal. The Green Mohave sidewinder is very deadly. It injects two types of neuro-toxin into the person or animal unlucky enough to be bitten by it.

The area of the desert where I live doesn't seem to have any of the Green Mohave Sidewinders. We have the much less poisonous Horned Sidewinder. It actually has little horns on its head. All my dogs except the White Ghost and Katy, were bitten at least once by a Horned Sidewinder. The dogs didn't need any attention except to be left alone in a cool, dark place for a couple of days. The bite seemed to be very painful to them, but left no residual effects once they recovered--and they all did recover.

The reason there were so many snakes on my property at the time I first moved here, is because no humans had ever lived in my cabin, nor anywhere around my property. I leveled my five acres with a bulldozer and disturbed the animals and snakes living under the surface. People are no longer allowed to level their properties the way I did then. I'm glad I was able to do the leveling though, because now--after 36 years here-- I have very few snakes, and no longer kill them if I don't have to. When either M. or I go outside when it's dark, we always take a flashlight with us to see what's on the ground. I like the small LED headlamp, that casts a nice light without having to carry a fashlight in my hand.

There are two types of scorpions in our area of the desert. The large green scorpion, and the much smaller but more potent brown scorpion. I stepped<b> barefoot </font></b>on a large green scorpion while feeding my dogs once, back in the years, long gone. The bottom of my foot puffed up a little and hurt for about half a day, but then was back to normal the next morning. The large green scorpion about four inches long, suffered a death sentence.

I think it was during that same year I was stung on the index finger by a brown scorpion. I'd bought a windown air conditioner, unwrapped it, and left it sitting on the sand outside my house for a day while I prepared the windown sill where I was going to put the A.C..

The scorpion was hiding in the metal cooling grill and when I picked the A.C. up to place it in the window, I was stung and almost dropped the A.C.

That sting, hurt like hell, and I had swelling and a lot of pain in my entire hand. That scropion dropped down to the sand after biting me and got away. My finger and hand were back to normal after a couple of days.

There are also a lot of spiders here. Black widows can always be found in abandoned cabins, but their black color is pretty easy to spot. The spiders I dislike the most are the brown recluse spider who will hide in your shoes or a pair of work gloves--almost anywhere where it's dark. Their bite isn't fatal, and doesn't even hurt, but itches. In a few hours a red welt forms that itches a lot and then some of the flesh falls out of the red welt, leaving a crater in your skin where you were bitten. Depending on how much venom the spider had in it, the crater in a few cases can become very large and there have been cases where the person, it they were bitten on the face will need plastic surgery to close the large depression where the flesh has died and fallen out.

I was bitten once by a small recluse spinder not out here, but in a movie theater in Hollywood. I felt something crawling on my ear and swiped it with my hand and it bit me on the right cheek. My cheek began to itch almost immediately and soon the flesh came away leaving a small crater. I wore a bandaide over the hole for a long time and it finally healed up, but I have a spot on my cheek that won't grow any beard hair.

But the little critters I had no knowledge or forewarning of before moving out here on the desert, were the summer time ANTS.. Those M.Fuc--s! When the temperature gets over 100 every day, and the humidity is in the single digits, the ants go bananas.

Every one of the 36 years I've lived here I've had to fight the ants at this time of the year. There are ants of all species here, but the ones I hate the most are the Mohave Desert brand of tiny fireants. These suckers will eat you up, your house up, and any animals you have up.

Everyone I know who lives out here has trouble with these little biting suckers invading their homes at sometime during the summer months. Many people hire the professional exterminators to control the ants and other insects.

Like everything else, I do it myself.

Yesterday I went in the kitchen to make my last small pot of coffee for the afternoon and evening and found the little bastards on one of my kitchen counters. I discovered then just at the beginning of their ivasion because there were only a couple hundred of them swarming on the counter. These little fireants have a method of attack that's unique to ants. They'll find a way into your home and then build up their numbers before swarming in. After one of the big earthquakes we had out here that cracked the slab of my house directly across the center of the living room, I got out of bed to use the bathroom and stepped in the middle of literally thousands of these fireants. They stung the living crap out of my lower legs and thighs before I got in the shower and washed them off using plenty of soap.

At that time, I found the best way to fight back against the little bastards was to vacuum them up. Yeah! A good vacuum with perferably a disposable bag really does the job! That's what I used that time after the earthquake and have used it ever since when the ants attack.

At that time I was able to fix the deep crack in my floor with a good grade cement crack filler and caulking compound.

Yesterday afternoon, when I caught the bastards invading, I loaded everything from the counter, the toaster, the toaster oven, two blenders, an electric frypan--everything-- off the counter, and into large cardboard boxes. Outside they went, because ants were in all of them. Sometime this morning I'll get those items, and either bring them back inside or find another place to put them. By the time I post this, all the ants will have disappeared from those items.

After putting everything from the counter outside, I got my small DIRT DEVIL VACUUM and sucked all the little bastards up. The Dirt Devil doesn't have a disposable paper bag, it uses a cloth bag, but it seems to kill the ants as they pass into the bag.

Next thing to do was to find where the ants were coming in the house... It was through a small crack that had opened near a light switch. I sprayed in some Raid, and then caulked the hole with white silicon 35 year caulk, and that should solve the problem-- until the next time I find them invading.

by davidstardust June 29th, Friday morning, 2012...sorry this post is so long.. my fingers were flying over the keyboard.





stardust81937 86M
8340 posts
6/29/2012 7:23 pm

Well, you know, every place has it distractions. lol. xxxxdavid


WilderThanU2 63F
2740 posts
6/29/2012 6:36 am

Eewwww lol


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