Revenge of the Fire Ants

Wow! Did the fire ants ever get their revenge on me. They swarmed my left arm from my wrist to just above my elbow leaving no less than a hundred sting whelps.

Last Sunday was a beautiful day with a few fluffy white clouds and barely a wisp of wind. It was an ideal time to burn a brush pile I had stacked around an old unwanted tree stump. I set fire to the brush and stood by to keep an eye on it. As it burned down I decided to pick up some old fallen limbs laying about and throw them on the fire. I had carried several arm loads without incident. Then, I picked up an old limb from the ground, cradled it on my bare left forearm and bent over to pick up another. I suddenly felt a stinging sensation. I looked at my arm. It was swarming with a mass of several hundred fire ants, all intent on stinging me. I dropped the piece of tree limb and frantically brushed off the ants, but not before a hundred or so had already stung me.

I quickly went to the house and soused my left arm with Clorox. The ant venom is acid and the Clorox is basic. It neutralized a lot of the stings but still left me with about a hundred red whelps on my arm. The next day day about half of them formed into little pus pistulas. My arm looks a mess and is begining to itch.

Don't mess with fire ants.