When they come, we will put them in the fridge for ten minutes (to slow them down) and then add them carefully to the hill. If we care for them properly, they should live for a few weeks before they die (for lack of having a queen).
Did you know ants need a queen to survive? We learned that and lots of other interesting facts in this book called Ant Cities that Norah read out loud to me. It's another Let's Read and Find Out book we got from the library.
I noticed one interesting illustration with the caption "Queen ants and males flying off to mate" in the book and pointed it out to Norah. I wondered if this actually happened on a regular basis and thought to myself that it would be interesting to see a bunch of ants swarming out of a nest somewhere, someday.
I was on the phone a day later when Norah ran inside (she had been outside drawing with chalk on our front walk). She yelled that she had found "an ant with wings!" I didn't hurry off the phone because I figured she'd just found one winged insect of some kind and was mistaking it for an ant.
But, low and behold, when I finally went outside to see what Norah was making such a fuss about, I saw this swarm of ants coming up out of the ground next to our sidewalk, crawling to the tops of the blades of grass and flying away into the wind.
It's incredible how often God is so good to us and how He times what we see in our own yard with what we "happen to be studying." Of course, I believe He orders our steps so that we see these things when they will be most meaningful to us. This happened last year when we were reading Charlotte's Web and saw baby spiders flying away from their nest. Knowing the creator God makes living (and learning) so much more interesting!
1 comment:
Definitely do the 10 minutes in the fridge, I skimped on ours and had quite a lot of excited ants (and kids!) on my hands!!
Michelle DiMaio
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