where bad things go to die
Reason #23489723598235 I don’t like having a wood stove: sometimes it’s where bad things go to die.
There was the time over three years ago I found a dead mouse by the wood stove, but mostly it’s just bugs. It doesn’t happen often, really, but it seems we’ve gotten a bad batch of wood this time around.
Monday I killed four or five very large black ants. I just squished them with my shoe. But they came out of this near-rotted piece of wood. Yesterday, I walked down in the morning to find a HUGE black bug on its back near the stove, legs kicking in the air. Who knows how long he’d been there or how he got on his back. Sometimes I’m inclined to think those things aren’t very smart. I don’t know what he was, definitely not a roach, some kind of beetle, but he was at least an inch in length with a width to match. I scooped him up in the little shovel and threw him in the fire. Then I saw another one, also on its back, at the edge of the bark pile (we tend to get a big pile of bark and little pieces of wood, great for kindling), I scooped him up and threw him in, too. When I grabbed the last piece of wood from the pile and turned it on its edge to get ready to throw it in the fire, what did I see? Yeah, another one, burrowed in the wood. That one kinda grossed me out, it started to try and get out of the wood when it felt the heat of the fire. But it just wasn’t fast enough!
Now, it’s not to say that these things could escape and infest our house or anything. They are all content either burrowing in the wood just like they do outside for the winter or they’re happy because it’s nice and warm in the basement. I figure they only come out if they get knocked from their hibernation spot or it just gets too warm for comfort. But by then, they’re being hurled into the fire anyway. If some do leave when we’re not looking, there are plenty of traps downstairs and such waiting for them.
The only other time I recall having to deal with bugs was once when I got ready to throw in a piece of wood last year or the year before and as it got really close to the fire, two roaches dislodged themselves from somewhere in there and started running very fast. One made it to the floor only to get squished and the other went into the fire. So, yeah, no escapees.
And, no, it’s not that I’m afraid of bugs, I’m not. I just don’t want them in my house! And surprisingly, even though we’re under construction here all the time and I have horrible organizational skills, we’ve been fairly bug-free the whole time we’ve been here. That’s why last year’s ant problem (around the kitchen sink) was so strange. We rarely see a spider in here, even in the basement; when I see them upstairs, many times they’ve ridden in on flowers I’ve cut, etc.
Anyway, die bugs, die. Or stay outside. Either way.
