“We just fended off an alien invasion!” I wrote on Facebook Saturday evening.  “I thought there were 50-100 of them but My friend says it was more like 27,000. Whew, that was close.”  Upon close inspection, he said they were not termites, they were carpenter ants and they were along the baseboard where I spilled coffee last week. I washed the wall and floor where it was spilled, but apparently I didn’t get it all. They were ganged up right below the spot it spilled.  I Googled online to learn about them.  “Homeowners may be concerned if they see carpenter ants inside. But, seeing carpenter ants inside the home does not necessarily mean the house is actually infested. It could mean the house is simply within foraging distance of a colony.”  Good news… I called my pest control dude anyway.  He called back and said the carpenter ants are just swarming now, and they should be gone by Wednesday. If not, he’ll come out Thursday if I need him. And here I thought they all left because we wrote them a note last night: “Dear Ants, I know we share this space.  We would appreciate if you stayed outside and we have the inside.  Thank you.  We forgive you.  Please forgive us.”  We signed it. They left.  I learned this technique years ago and wrote about it at Communicating with the critters you share space with.   

I have to be careful when trimming my hedges to look for cardinal nests, they can be well hidden. In trimming last week, I exposed more of it than I would have had I seen the nest there.  I wrote the mama cardinal a note asking her to please move her nest elsewhere.  Wrote a note??  What are you talkin’ about??

Years ago I learned a neat trick.  I had some ants who decided to move onto the back porch.  Then I saw one in the house.  That would simply not do, so I wrote them a note.  It basically said “Dear ants: I am happy to share space with you and you can have the entire outside and stay there, and  I will have the entire inside.  Thank you” Then I put a copy of the note on my healing bench.  That’s where I keep notes of who and what to pray for, then I pray the bench twice a day as part of my spiritual practice.

I’d written a note years before for some raccoons as well.  They’d begun thinking they could just walk in the cat door and help themselves to the cats’ food.  That would simply not do, so they got a note asking them to stay outside.  Both times, with the raccoons and with the ants, their invasion stopped that day.

So, seeing the cardinal nest so low and so near the cat door, I wrote the mama cardinal a note asking her to please move her nest elsewhere.  The day after the note was the last time I saw her near the nest.

If you share space with any creatures and have a message you’d like to get across, write them a note.  Write them a note as if they will read it and understand it and obey it.  Trust me.  It works.