You Grow Girl™

Yesterday we went to High Park. We arrived by a different route so ended up walking through starting at the north end of the park rather then the south. As a result we walked through a forested area next to the ravine. Just a few steps off of Bloor Street and the air was CLEAN! The amazing power of trees at work.

Along the route I was telling Davin about the info I had read on the web on some of the indigenous plants in the park when sure enough I spotted a colony of the rare blue lupine (Lupinus perennis) up on a hill. It was a very exciting find considering I had just read about it a few days prior.

We stopped by the Hill Top Gardens on the way out to check out what was in bloom. Lilacs are just coming to the end of their season so we spent a bit of time sniffing the flowers as this would probably be our last chance before next year to smell lilacs.

On our last stop before leaving the park I got the bright idea to lay in the grass. Lots of people were hanging about lazing in the sun and it looked comfortable. I found a nice tree to lay under and set about relaxing. Davin made a half-joking comment about how I'd better watch out for the ants. Well I've lived my entire life in this part of the world and while ants can be a bit of a nuisance, they have never been anything to "watch out for". A few minutes later I felt a bite on my arm but thought perhaps I had poked my arm on a stick or something or maybe it was a spider in which case I had a slim chance of being bit a second time. So I continued to lay under the tree. My arm stung and there was a tiny bump but no big deal. Then I felt a second sting on my arm and it was HARD! Then Davin felt a bite on his back and when he reached back he extracted a tiny red ant from the bite spot. We were being attacked by tiny, red ants.

Now as I mentioned we have ants here in Southern Ontario and we even have red ants, but they are nothing like the red ants in Texas that have been known to kill people who are allergic to the chemical they emit. I have NEVER heard a peep about killer ants in the Golden Horseshoe. We live in Ontario, the safest place on earth. Just about nothing can kill you here, save a bear (the ones that are left in Provincial Parks) or a swarm of bees (the docile Europeans no less). We don't even have much in the way of dangerous weather minus the odd lightening storm or occassional tornado. This is a VERY safe place in comparison to places with poisoness snakes that creep into people's houses and backyards (we have tiny garders) or poisoness spiders (mean-looking but harmless garden spiders here), or the countless natural disasters that are a way of life in other parts of the world.

And yet here I am, living here for 28 years and in a span of a few weeks I have strange, aggressive encounters with nature twice, and in the same place! That ant bit hard! Really hard. A few minutes after the bite and I felt pain in other parts of my arm. By that point I was a bit freaked out. Was this some crazy, introduced species I had never heard about? I've heard about foreign insects crossing the ocean stowed away in bananas and other imported fruit. I began playing out in my head every nature show I had ever seen regarding insect poisoning where the person's arm swells up and becomes indistinguishable. I even thought, for a brief second about going into the local emergency room. Can you imagine it?

"Hi, um, I was just bit by a red ant at High Park. Am I going to die?"

Instead we went home. The swelling went down, the pain subsided, we lived.

I'm not a nature wimp. I like the out of doors. I'm not afraid to touch creepy crawlies and slimey things. But lately...