Moving House.

Did you notice that ring on the top of the storage space to the right of my poinsettia photos?  If so, you might have been curious about what it was.  Not just a ring of dirt from where I moved the pot.  This is what was going on! It reminds me of humans evacuating a hospital before a hurricane or after a disaster.  And yes, I did feel a bit guilty. But it looks like their backup plan worked just fine. (Click on the first photo to enlarge photos and read captions.)

Whe I returned from two months at the beach, I was amazed to find poinsettias blooming even more profusely than they had bloomed in december. Notice the ring on the top of the bodega to the right of the flowers?

It was partially soil from the bottom of the pot, but it was also hundreds of tiny ants

hurrying to move their eggs to safer ground.

Obviously, the bottom of the pot had been their nursery.

Now they moved in orderly twos

and ones,

every upwards.

following the line of the window edge

A few did not avoid the trap of a spider web.

But eventually, all had relocated in the light sconce above. When I went out six hours later, all was still. Not a sign of a tiny ant or egg, until I turned over the pot from the location I had moved it to. About 50 of the ants had re-relocated back to their former home. When I turned the pot sideways, they scurried around like mad, grabbing their assigned eggs and making off again. Hurriedly, I set the pot back down again. No time for a photo this time.