Little Sumo Girl

When we moved into our new place in Canggu, mom and dad hired a gardener to do a major clean-up of the lawn. The land is beautiful with different types of trees, flowers, a temple and even a ‘river’ in the back. However, it was starting to look a bit like a jungle-in-the-happening, and what’s scary in the jungle is what’s hidden underneath all that ‘Natural’ beauty 🙂 We needed someone to come freshen up the place and set free the many creatures that most definitely were lurking around…and fast…

Our gardener did an amazing job in only two days, it went from a ‘wild-jungle-adventure’ feel to a ‘serene-bed&breakfast-like’ ambiance! What makes it even more impressive is the tools, that he used to transform our landscape!

I’m sure you won’t find this lawnmower on sale this spring at Home Depot or Sears…

Old-school lawnmower

Oh, and he only had to kill one scary snake during the ‘clean-up’. Unfortunately, it was The undesirable ‘Green Pit Viper’, with a red tail…

Green Pit Viper Snake

There are many creatures here in Bali, from dragon flies, bees, geckos to bats and snakes. Ants may seem like the most harmless little buggers, but when they’re packed together, boy it’s extraordinary what they can do!

Trust me, in the few months since I’ve been here, I’ve seen my fair share of ants: migrating from one home to another, clearing out the last crumbs of a bag of peanuts, feasting in our garbage cans,… Although they can be a nuisance sometimes, it can be handy to have them around, especially for keeping the house ‘clean’ or for ‘Dead-Pest Control’ rather.

They pretty much force you to keep the place ‘clean’ or at a minimum, to clear out anything that’s edible from any open surface area. But, I learned that they can also help ‘clean up’ your home…of dead bugs.

We had a dead gecko in our living room the other day, and before we could get our broom to sweep him out. The ants had already carried him out, in just a matter of minutes. Unfortunately, the video came out too blurry but here’s a pic. You can imagine them moving the poor gecko at about 1cm/sec…pretty fast!

A few days later, they were trying to move a dead cockroach from our bathroom but mom was too impatient to wait for them…With all this ‘food’ they’re getting, let’s just hope that I don’t come face to face with an army of Giant Ants soon!