03.31.06 - 12:24 am

the beginning.

today ashton and i met up with john at his farm. taking two shovels, a trowel, a bucket, keith, and a miniature air force one, we headed down to the marshlands of johns property. our mission was to locate a termite nest, extract as much of it as possible, and return with at least the hope of a substainable colony in hand.
after the orchards of blight turned out to be less than fruitful, we proceeded towards the creek. just before, we dug around a stump that according to john, the day prior had yielded a bountiful supply of the pale white insects. unfortunately, a day later it now only gave up worms. ashton collected these tirelessly. he kept them all in his tiny hand, his airliner in the other. he refused to leave any behind. they all had to fit in his hand.
from there we hopped a fence and crossed paths with a goat, a goat with a huge unsightly goiter coming out of the side of his face. apparently john will be cutting this open sometime soon and pushing out the contents of this growth. thinking of this scenario brings me to regurgitation.
the goat kept trying to get into the bucket that ashton was carrying. adorably, ashton communicates with animals like he would a person. he would watch the goat try to stick his face in the bucket (containing the airplane and several worms) before objecting by saying: "no, stop that. you cant have that," and then taking the bucket away from the goat, as if it were some annoying small child.

the motherload.

walking across some marshy foliage, we came to a stump. but not before ashton got to hold what i assume was his first tree frog. he seemed to enjoy it, but would have enjoyed it more if he could have squeezed the frog or had it make some noise by pressing on it. so in order to spare its life, we released it and ashton wasnt as upset or curious as i (hoped) expected him to be.
john and keith and i took to the stump to give up its contents, and marvelous they were. worms. beetles. centipedes. millipedes. grubs. ants. termites. baby mice.
termites were everywhere in this tree. the wood was so rotted and spongey that you could peel it like string cheese. if you squeezed, water would come running out. the termite tunnels were narrow veins throughout, and even though most of these insects were fat and round, or with large orange and black mouth parts, they somehow are able to move through these tunnels, in huge numbers. crammed in theses tunnels by the hundreds.
some baby pink mice showed up, but unfortunately, they ended up in the creek.
ashton held some newts, but found them more interesting as he threw them into the water. ashton himself fell in the water at one point, having leaned too far over the embankment, and slid through the wet mud. he was soaked up to his knees, and started to cry. john convinced him he had just been swimming and that it wasnt so bad. so when keith asked ashton what had happened, crying and teary eyed ashton choked out, "i was swimming!" and not in a happy way either.
our bucket full of wood and moving white masses, two hours passed, and nearly two feet down into the stump we decided to call it a day. ashton was wet muddy and filthy. my knees were smeared with earth, my fingernails nice and dirty. i was proud of ashton. he looked great. it was very satisfying to have him be so muddy and filthy and wet and not complain a bit. at one point, while john and i were collecting, ashton just leaned onto a log over the creek and dangled his fingers in the water. he then had a discussion with himself about whether or not there were sharks in the water.

conclusion.

i now have a bucket of termites in the garage of my mothers house. wet newspaper tops the bucket, and a white garbage sack surrounds it. tomorrow i will begin construction on some sort of captive environment for them. it will be glorious.