A preliminary investigation into the aphid crisis on the cucumber leaves looks promising this morning. I didn’t check every leaf yet, but looking at the hot spots from yesterday, I found two — now dead — aphids, and the ants seem to be annoyed and fewer in number. The ants can be as annoyed as they like this morning, because when I get back from the store today, they’ll have other things to worry about, like how the ant poison I will be baiting them into carrying into their nest is killing them. I have been unsuccessful in killing them or running them off with non-poisonous means, and I now want the ants gone. For all I know, there’s a mega-universe of ants living under the paved driveway. Well, not for long!

If I go out with my soapy water spray bottle this afternoon and carefully spray every nook and cranny of the cucumber plants again, it’s possible I may take the lead in the Great Aphid War of 2008.