Tag: ant nest

You cut off his head, legs come looking for you – 2nd July 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Rainy season started early this year – very early in fact. So, it’s hot and wet and therefore, sticky and humid. Every year, usually after a big rain, some form or another of bug will suddenly emerge from the ground by the millions, to flutter around for five minutes, procreate and then die. Each morning we have to sweep away the piles of carcasses from around our front porch.

On this occasion we had some assistance from a colony of ants in search of nutrition. The picture is taken from a video, which I can’t post here, so it’s difficult to see the army of ants carrying these insects off to their nest. I followed the trail, along our front path, under my hammock, passed the garage, the outdoor toilets, the teaching room and somewhere in amongst the grass near our front gate. A good twenty to thirty metres away from where I took this picture I guess.

A few weeks later and the rains became more torrential and consistent, another colony of ants decided they needed a new home. It wasn’t unusual to see some ants around by the back door and inspecting under the washing machine as it was a pantry of dead bugs and lizards under there. But this time, over the course of one night we found this nest of mud the following morning!

A dose of ant killer soon stopped them and then the task of dragging out the washing machine and digging out their nest with a small shovel! Sorry, ants – this house isn’t big enough for all of us. We can’t have a million of anything living here!

Damned Ants

The invaders are coming
Building castles in dark recesses
An unstoppable force
With an ingenuity that impresses
Counting in their millions
Each one so sure of their role
Ceaselessly marching onward
In determined self-control
I must gather my own forces
With a bucket, shovel and mop
These damned ants – be gone!
Like them, I too, will never stop

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that Amy’s dad took the student’s dog. I hope he takes good care of it. I’m also happy and grateful to be able to start teaching a new student of Ellen’s, a 16-year-old who is moving to Melbourne with her family. She is very quiet but knows she has to study hard.

Poetry is Useless – 30th June 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

I like this quote from Michael Longley (a poet) – courtesy of Rob Walker’s Art of Noticing newsletter:

“One of the marvelous things about poetry is that it’s useless. It’s useless. ‘What use is poetry?’ people occasionally ask, in the butcher shop, say. They come up to me and they say, ‘What use is poetry?’ And the answer is, ‘No use.’ 

“But it doesn’t mean to say that it’s without value. It’s without use, but it has value. It is valuable. 

“And the first people that dictators try to get rid of are the poets and the artists, the novelists and the playwrights. They burn their books. They’re terrified of what poetry can do. … Poetry encourages you to think for yourself.”

The picture is from the Drawn and Quarterly book by Anders Nilsen ‘Poetry is Useless’ – I’d like to read that one day!

25th Mar 2024 – Although I didn’t really write much myself here I submitted this to the Living Poetry page.

Return Voyage

All the striving, the work, the living
Has brought me to my lifelong dream
What now that I have nothing to be giving
Just floating by, on my way downstream
What for me? A challenge, just because?
The journey is far better than the arrival
A brain stimulation, a stress all a-buzz
Life – is it anything more than my survival?
A challenge now I must myself set
To instil my life with some meaning
I’ve found myself before and never forget
I must no longer neglect my dreaming
A journey like this may only be complete
On return to the place that I came
Those from which I ran in defeat
Though I know I will never return the same

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to the colony of ants that ingeniously built a huge nest behind our washing machine without us noticing. It’s amazing to see – they bought in bits of mud to build the nest, millions and millions of tiny pieces to make a huge pile in the corner. Unfortunately for them, we are going to remove it this afternoon!