Long nights

So on Wednesday night we were sitting peacefully at the table when Curly started screaming from the bathroom that there was a bat. Assuming that she was exaggerating, no one jumped up to rescue her. When the screaming continued, I went into the bathroom, only to be dive-bombed by a..... can you guess, BAT.

I grab Curly, with her pants still around her ankles and shove her into the bed room, only to discover a second bat in there. We ushered all the girls to the opposite side of the house and then began the bat hunt. One, we found in the trash can, the other was on the window screen above the Baby Girl's bed. Kent was quite the sight with his broom, work gloves (with holes) and a bucket or two, trying to catch them and put them out side.

After both bats were successfully out side, Kent commented on how that wasn't how he had expected to spend his evening. Little did we know what Thursday night would hold.....

Thursday night, about the same time I was once again headed into the bathroom, when I heard

the unwelcome sound of flapping wings. Assuming there was another bat I scanned the room as I quickly headed to the door. What I discovered was NOT bats, but BUGS. White ants to be exact.

Really there is no way to accurately describe the MILLIONS upon MILLIONS of winged incests that were flying about. Some how they were finding their way into the house via the girls windows. They were attracted to that end of the house because of the security light. Once we realized that the only way to keep them out was to keep the lights off, we sat in the dark catching the ones that had made it in. This is significant on two different levels:

1. We normally don't have power.... Ok maybe not normally, but half the time we are cooking by lantern light, or bathing by flashlight, and for us to HAVE to turn the lights off, to do it our selves... that was sad.

2. We were collecting the bugs to give them as a gift to our neighbor, since Lady had scared her that afternoon. Yes, you read that correctly, we were giving bugs as a gift. Now don't act too shocked, I have already told you that they eat them, that they grind them into a paste. Only I told you a small fib. Kent thought that white ants and termites were the same thing, well they are not. THESE, these bugs that were swarming my house are white ants.

Anyway, back to that evening. There we were collecting bugs for our neighbor, when Lady started going crazy, Kent when to check on things and discovered people out collecting too! They were lighting little fires on the road to attract the bugs and were snatching them up and throwing them in to buckets and pots.
Kent wanted to be neighborly and so he invited them up to the gate so they could catch the bugs that were swarming our light. He even jumped in and helped. I wish I new more about these little creatures, apparently they they only come out once every so often, but when they come, they come in mass. They fly around, then they shed their wings, burrow in the ground and lay their eggs. Well I think they lay eggs, I know that they shed their wings. See:

That is all wings... and just a small portion of what was left in our yard. Kent eventually invited the neighbors into our compound as well. He even served them sodas. They were excited to have access to so many bugs. After HOURS of bug collecting, Kent finally decided to call it a night. We kept the house lights off and the gate light on and told them they could come back in the morning.

And they did. Baby Girl even helped collect a few bugs too. Hopefully we were able to begin a few new friendships through this random appearance of bugs.

Last night we kept the all the house lights off, just in case, but it was for not, because the ant rush was over.