My ants were left alone for the weekend and while there were no great monuments built to me, they also did not die. I can accept this lack of extremes.
Today was another watering day…an activity that fills me with dread. When the ant farm was first set up, you had to pour in quite a bit of water to make sure that the convenient, easy to carry sand was evenly moist for the comfort of the ants. Now the sand is dry and I am only to put in a few drops of water but I fear that I won’t put in enough and it will distribute itself too evenly and the ants wont be able to survive this horrible arid experience.
Watering time brought unmatched excitement to my ants today. With freedom hill complete and functional I was wary of opening my ant farm to water them, as well I should have been. Upon opening the village section and squeezing the eye dropper of clean water, the ants scattered and made a break for it. The ants had planned well in the construction of their beloved freedom hill, but how could they foresee the world outside their village? One brave ant made it out, hitting the surface of the file cabinet with a barely audible click. He recovered and ran, what else could he do? He ran straight for the edge of the cabinet where I stood waiting with the cover to their village. He was promptly tossed back in and the village sealed.
Surely this ant must have been awestruck at his experience. What would you think if you ran off your world and made a great leap into the unknown only to find yourself falling from your sky back into your world? You would think you had discovered a wormhole in the universe. Your fellow ants would see you as a mythical hero. You would be part Antstronaut, part Albert Antstein. Your fellow ants would throw a parade in your honor and you would feast on succulent sprouts and suck water from the ground. Surely, your fellow ants would want to do that if your fellow ants had the ability to remember stuff that had happened 30 seconds before. Fame and glory are fleeting in the ant world.
Today my little ants are sluggish and boring. After mulling the situation, I have determined that it is because it is noticeably cooler in my office now than it was last week. Our cooling system was set to deal with the high tempuratures last week and now that it is cooler this week the system can pump out very cold air. Even I am slightly chilled. I can almost hear my ants complaining. “What is this with the coldness? We used to be happy. It was warm and it felt good. Now we got cold, and we got young ants dancing in the walkways and buildings. What do we want for buildings. Acch, what I wouldn’t give for a little of the old days.” “But, papa, don’t you remember? The sand was not so convenient or easy to carry then. And there were many creatures who ate us. Papa, we have food and we have water, such as it is, and an amazing lack of ant eaters here.” “Feh, go on with you. My knees hurt from the cold.”
i will look into heating options for them soon. On a side note: Carbon dioxide still sends them into a frenzy, but a slower, more sluggish frenzy.