Another reason not to live in Texas

[Martha]

Crazy Rasberry ants.
"In what sounds like a really low-budget horror film, voracious swarming ants that apparently arrived in Texas aboard a cargo ship are invading homes and yards across the Houston area, shorting out electrical boxes and messing up computers.The hairy, reddish-brown creatures are known as ''crazy rasberry ants'' -- crazy, because they wander erratically instead of marching in regimented lines, and ''rasberry'' after Tom Rasberry, an exterminator who did battle against them early on."



Add it to your list Wahoo.




http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/A...in&oref=slogin

[ziggy29]

And here I thought it was going to be the tornado warnings, all the hail, 60 MPH winds and 3" of rain we got last night.

[REWahoo]

Yep. Just when you think it can't get any better worse...

Video: Beware! Crazy ants on the loose

[Want2retire]

Let's see. The raspberry ants bite but it doesn't hurt as much as a fire ant bite, and they compete with and eat fire ants.

Maybe they will IMPROVE Texas in the long run?

(hate those Texas fire ants...)

[Orchidflower]

I think they said they came in on some cargo ship, which would be at Houston's port. Since 2002, but I left in 2003 and never saw them.

[Cattusbabe]

Did someone add crickets to the list? Went to my sisters wedding five years ago in central Texas in July. Why that month I do not know and I have never forgiven her. It was a late morning which really did not help. It was hotter than the hinges of hell. The women in long gowns and the men in morning (sp?)suits...full rig. My God I have never seen so many crickets in my life. We had five in our motel room alone. Did not sleep at all well. Haven't been back since.

DH and I are driving cross country this fall to New Mexico and will be making various stops along the way including visiting dear sis. God knows what infestation we will encounter on this visit.

[ziggy29]

Originally Posted by Cattusbabe

Did someone add crickets to the list? Went to my sisters wedding five years ago in central Texas in July. Why that month I do not know and I have never forgiven her. It was a late morning which really did not help. It was hotter than the hinges of hell. The women in long gowns and the men in morning (sp?)suits...full rig. My God I have never seen so many crickets in my life. We had five in our motel room alone. Did not sleep at all well. Haven't been back since.

The crickets were horrible here last year. We had a lot of spring and early summer rains and I guess that helped them multiply like crazy. At times overnight the roads here were covered in live and smashed/dead crickets. We were at an evening event at the Community Center last September (or early October) and by the end of it there were crickets swarming all over the place inside the venue.

[Khan]

Originally Posted by Cattusbabe

Did someone add crickets to the list? Went to my sisters wedding five years ago in central Texas in July. Why that month I do not know and I have never forgiven her. It was a late morning which really did not help. It was hotter than the hinges of hell. The women in long gowns and the men in morning (sp?)suits...full rig. My God I have never seen so many crickets in my life. We had five in our motel room alone. Did not sleep at all well. Haven't been back since.

DH and I are driving cross country this fall to New Mexico and will be making various stops along the way including visiting dear sis. God knows what infestation we will encounter on this visit.

Many years ago (20?), I was in San Antonio, and the river through town was wall to wall (dead) crickets.

[REWahoo]

Originally Posted by Khan

Many years ago (20?), I was in San Antonio, and the river through town was wall to wall (dead) crickets.

Little has changed...well, other than the addition of a few tourists to keep the crickets company.

[SteveR]

Too bad the Crazy ants don't eat the Fire ants, Killer Bees, rattle snakes, scorpions, chiggers, taruntulas, fleas, flies, crickets, 'skeeters, or termites.

Now Tejas has yet another reason for me to never live there again.

I will be just fine with our scorpions, rattlesnakes and the occasional mosquito. Dry heat has it's good points too.

[Walt34]

Wow. I've never been to Texas, you guys make it sound like a place to avoid. But since so many people live there, there must be something good about it.

[REWahoo]

Originally Posted by Walt34

Wow. I've never been to Texas, you guys make it sound like a place to avoid. But since so many people live there, there must be something good about it.

Really? Better give some further thoughts to scorpions, rattlesnakes, fire ants, crazy ants, cockroaches on steroids, killer bees, mosquitoes, ticks, chiggers, tarantulas, brown recluse spiders, love bugs, swarming crickets, copperheads, cottonmouths, rabid skunks, wild hogs, alligators, oppressive heat & humidity, bleak desolate scenery, dirty beaches, polluted air, dust storms, drought, wildfires, water shortages, recurring floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, rednecks, huge piles of flaming mulch, spontaneously combusting playgrounds, roads hot as flowing lava, the stench of natural and unnatural gasses, amoebic meningitis lurking in area lakes, recurring ebola virus outbreaks, flesh eating bacteria, staggering homeowner insurance rates, unbelievably high property taxes, mandatory death sentences for DUI convictions, and, lest we forget, Orchidflower’s testimonial of how Texans treat “Yankees”.

...I love a good set-up.

[Leonidas]

Originally Posted by Walt34

...there must be something good about it.

You were doing so good Walt until the last.

I don't have a problem with crickets, but if we could ship all of the Love Bugs somewhere I would be so darn pleased.



Interesting Love Bug factoid from Wikipedia:

...its apparently highly acidic body chemistry. Because airborne love bugs exist in enormous numbers near highways, they die en masse on automobile windshields, hoods, and radiator grills when the vehicles travel at high speeds. If left for more than an hour or two, the remains become dried and extremely difficult to remove, and their acidity pits and etches automotive paint and chrome. Insects remains may be scrubbed from cars using dryer sheets, though no scientific evidence exists that shows they are more or less efficient than any other material. The application of a vegetable coating can be highly effective in preventing the bugs from sticking to automobiles.

Love bug - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I wonder if you can use recycled dryer sheets.

The vegetable oil application sounds interesting, but I think it drives the rattlesnakes into an attack frenzy.

[Eagle43]

[Walt34]

Originally Posted by REWahoo

lest we forget, Orchidflower’s testimonial of how Texans treat “Yankees”.

We ran into a little bit of that when we moved from MD to WV. Parts of WV are still fighting the Civil War, and the Panhandle area did not want to secede from the Union. Weird. There is also the sense that unless your ancestors moved here in covered wagons you're an intruder. But the MD line is literally 15 minutes away!

And there is - what to call it - "money envy?" The three Panhandle counties generate a disproportionate amount of the state's tax income, while down in "Deliverance Country" if you drive a pickup less than ten years old and/or have a paved driveway you're a wealthy man. I am given to understand that such people are viewed with a high level of suspicion and are not welcome. So the Panhandle counties complain about being "milked" to support the rest of the state, and the rest of the state complains about the whining rich people up north.

The whole thing reminds me of being in the third grade.

[ls99]

Texas, fine state, just be sure to talk Texan.

Sometime in the seventies was bumming around the US in a Winnebago motorhome. Having quit w*rk. Practicing for retirement I suppose.

Arrived at the Texas border coming from Louisiana. Stopped at the welcome center. Used to watch Austin city limits show on TV. So I asked the attendant for direction to where the show was held. Figure, go see it live.

After asking the question, got a blank stare. So I ask again. Can you please tell me where is the show held? More puzzled look, more blank stares. Now by several attendants.

Getting the the feeling; that what we have here is a failure to communicate. So, one more time, with the best pronunciation I can muster, slowly repeat my question.

Finally, one of the ladies, in the finest Texas drawl, says: Boy, I caint understaind a word yew sayin, yew tawlk funny.

I just smiled, said thanks, and moved on through Texas, Four or five day later arrived in Nevada. But that's a story for some other time.

By the way I learned English in NY state, then significantly enhanced vocabulary by highly descriptive Army talk.

[Leonidas]

Originally Posted by Walt34

We ran into a little bit of that when we moved from MD to WV. Parts of WV are still fighting the Civil War, and the Panhandle area did not want to secede from the Union. Weird. There is also the sense that unless your ancestors moved here in covered wagons you're an intruder. But the MD line is literally 15 minutes away!

We've got to school you now that you're living amongst us.

I was originally a history major, and genealogy is one of the things I play with in ER, so I have accumulated some otherwise worthless information that they don't teach you foreigners Yankees northern cousins in whatever passes for a history class in the frozen north.

The South was colonized under a very different economic and social model than the North. It developed differently in those aspects and regional differences were stark long before the War of Northern Aggression. The war was neither the start nor the end of those differences, it was just a violent exclamation point. In many ways the South did not recover from being a defeated former enemy until well into the last century. We didn't get General MacArthur or the Marshall Plan, we got Carpetbaggers and Reconstruction.

A nation, even one as briefly lived as the Confederate States, doesn't lose a war, undergo military occupation by less than magnanimous victors, and experience massive social, political and economic change whose effects took decades to work themselves out without developing some shared bitter memories.

As for being looked upon as an intruder, I don't know if that is necessarily a Southern thing as much as it happens in places where the population consists mostly of the ancestors of the families that have been there forever. I've heard that there are places in rural New England where, even after living there for 25 years, you are still known as the "new guy" that bought the Johnson place.

Anyway, welcome and enjoy yourself. But remember, if it not for some bad luck at Gettysburg in 1863, you might be living here, but you would need a resident alien card.

[Leonidas]

Just saw Eagle43's post of the sign at Toad's Roadkill Cafe in gorgeous Leakey, Texas. I hunt off highway 83 about 20 miles north of Leakey and did once eat a greasy but not inedible cheeseburger at Toad's. I was not brave enough to order the Armadillo burger.

[REWahoo]

Originally Posted by Leonidas

I was not brave enough to order the Armadillo burger.

Over behind the pine curtain (East TX) armadillo is known as 'possum on the half-shell'...

[Walt34]

Originally Posted by Leonidas

We've got to school you now that you're living amongst us.

<snip>

Anyway, welcome and enjoy yourself. But remember, if it not for some bad luck at Gettysburg in 1863, you might be living here, but you would need a resident alien card.

Thank you for the schooling.

It's often difficult to keep the widely different perspectives in mind about why people think, do, and behave as they do. But it also makes things more interesting.