ComposTumbler number two has been ordered and is on the way. You might wonder why I would get another one, and this time the bigger medium-sized one, when I hadn't gotten the first load of compost from the little tumbler. I can sum it up in two words:

I got savaged by fire ants while cleaning up around a rotting stump in the back yard on Saturday about nine days ago. I didn't know we had them, and when I started pulling away loosened pieces of bark and wood, these fat little red ants came swarming out like they were flying high on speed.

The bites started swelling up alarmingly, but Mom insisted that I must have a honeysuckle allergy. She had been treated for one earlier. The Foile ointment didn't help much, so Steve got some hydrocortisone cream to add to the treatment.

By Monday my left forearm was almost completely covered by an angry red rash with oozing blisters where the worst bites were, and my right forearm was about half covered. We went to Mom's dermatologist to get treatment. Mom insisted that it was a honeysuckle allergy, so the doctor coated both forearms with betamethasone cream (a prescription strength cortisone cream) and zinc oxide cream, then swathed my arms in bandages like a mummy. I went home itching and miserable, and we had to get some neosporin plus pain relief to add an antibiotic cream as well.

I couldn't stand the itching which the bandages and zinc oxide cream was making worse, so I removed the bandages and cleaned my arms and put on the neosporin and betamethasone creams. I wasn't satisfied about the honeysuckle allergy explanation as I had told the doctor that I had been attacked by ants and it looked like insect bites at first, so I looked up fire ants on the internet. I found a page which explained about them and they have reached Tennessee. Here is the link: Fire Ants

Look at the closeup of the fire ant victim at your discretion. I wasn't bitten quite that badly, but it will give you an idea of what they can do. I told my family about what I had found and Steven chimed in that we had fire ants in that stump. Duh, why didn't someone tell me before I went out to clean up that area? The exterminator was supposed to have killed them. Mom thought we only had carpenter ants and termites. No, Steve insisted, it was carpenter ants and fire ants.

So the stump was duly and savagely drenched with diazinon mixed according to the package directions to kill fire ants. I spent most of the rest of the week with cream on my arms, holding them up to try to keep from smearing it on all my surroundings as I couldn't stand to have them wrapped in bandages. On top of it all, I turned out to be allergic to the betamethasone cream but still needed a topical cortisone as I couldn't take the pills because of my diabetes. I absorbed enough cortisone to raise my blood sugar levels sky high even so.

By Thursday my rash was lessened enough that I went out in the garden and looked around carefully to see if the ants were gone. The next door neighbor's ex-husband was there spraying around the edges of their property, so I told him about the fire ants. He told me that his ex-wife was complaining about poison ivy on her body. I told him there was some but I had been attacked by fire ants in the stump by our mutual property line and showed him my arms. He ran for his rake and a can of gasoline and hammered the stump open as much as possible with the end of the rake handle and drenched the stump with gasoline. One lone ant ran out along with some other bugs, so he pounded around the stump and drenched it again. With both of us watching it, we should be able to wipe out the ant colony and solve both itching problems.

Which brings me back to the second ComposTumbler, as you may vaguely remember me mentioning some ages ago. I need to clean up anything that might give aid and comfort to a fire ant, including my leaf piles waiting to go into the first ComposTumbler. The contents are quite brown and compost-looking, except that it never gets to finish the load because I keep dumping kitchen scraps into it. We just have too much kitchen scraps and yard waste for the little tumbler to handle alone. So, it is getting reinforcements from a second tumbler in the medium-sized model.

Surely we can't have too much stuff for two tumblers. At least I hope not, because I'm all worn out from tending to the first one. I must say that the yard does look ever so much better in the areas where I have gotten it mostly pruned and weeded, except for a few weeds coming up among the vegetables I planted there. I have some little beans, beets, mustard greens, cantaloupes, pumpkins, and lettuce seedlings coming up and looking pretty good, as those areas were old flower beds where the soil was in much better shape than in the yard where I had my little garden patch. I still can't show you pictures, because Mom is still objecting to our shame being seen.

I saw my endocrinologist today and was partly forgiven for the horrible blood sugar readings when he saw my arms. He switched me to a different cream and an antihistamine tablet to combat the swelling and redness. My arms are already looking and feeling much better as the tablet is blocking the reaction to the ant toxin. It will probably be several more days before this is completely healed, so I'm doing a little weeding and pruning with caution while awaiting the arrival of the new ComposTumbler. The company has promised to ship it in a few days. Stand by for more composting!