Hope is a Trooper

Goodness gracious sakes alive! Yes, I am, a trooper. But even an Ace Reporter, trooper like me, needs some time off from the busy rigors of Ace Reporting. So I’m on holiday, resting up at the CB. And what happens? Well, goodness, when I get to stay home at the CB I like to take a nice morning stroll about to see what’s happening. Out I go sashaying about, first through the pecan orchard. There’s Lomo, brachiating about.

Lomo! Get down from there. Go put some pants on. Goodness gracious!

Lomo not get down.

Well I swan! For goodness sakes Lomo get down from there right this minute and go put some clothes on.

Lomo not get down. Lomo displaying.

Goodness! Did Rayetta say you could do that?

Lovely Druidess say, all righty then, Lomo.

Well I never! Land Sakes Alive!!!!

Leaving Lomo to his display antics I sashayed onward, more round chested than ever. Oh look! Robins (Turdus migratorius) are hollering overhead, whilst winging their ways northwest toward a (Juniperus ashei) preserve where they shall find a nice robin motel.

Goodness, here I am in the formerly cultivated area. Look at that ant mound. Goodness! Hmmm. I’ll get my boyfriend out here to take its picture. I’ll holler for him. Ray! Come out here.

What?

Come on out here. Bring the camera.

What?

Ray, get yer butt out here right now. Bring the camera.

All righty then.

Here he comes. Stop that daffy behavior, Ray. Gimme that camera. Now stand over by that impressive pismire emporium. Click. Click-click-click-click. Click-click. There now.

I swan. This mighty edifice depicted is the home of a bunch of fire ants (Solenopsis invicta). They have hauled up mass quantities of dirt from the stygian bowels below. Gracious sakes. Fire ants are earth movers, all righty then. Mostly though, they only do this sort of mound erection when the soil is nice and damp. During Beelzebubberiffic, when the soil is dry, their edifices are in scant evidence.

Immigrants like these fire ant pismires have only lately arrived on the scene in these parts. Apparently, they eat ticks and almost everything else. Watch out Ray! Oops. Ray got to close. There he goes. He’ll soon have those pismires brushed off his feathers. Wait a nonce. My goodness! I didn’t know ducks, anted.

Anyway, the questions are, are these pismires, hapless environmental refugees that have found a new happy home in these parts, or, are they wicked aliens from foreign parts, arrived to steal our jobs, slaughter our herps, and sting us. Do you, home viewers, have any opinions? This is Ms. Hope Remains, Ace Reporter signing off, hey! Wait a nonce, I’m on vacation!
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Meantime, while Hope is vacationing at the CB, and the DNS is short-handed, the AP reports that Congress Avenue between 6th and 8th is closed, due to a bird die off. But fear not, experts from the Chamber of Commerce are at, or maybe in the general vicinity of, the quarantined bird die off area in downtown Austin.

The Ark Druid