Goatheads And Ants!

In the 7 1/2 years we have resided in beautiful Deming NM, this has been bye far the wettest summer. That is absolutely excellent, considering we were in three years of drought prior to this summer. I am sure all those folks with wells to the south west of us are very happy. Many of them have had to dig 150 to 300 feet further down over the past 5 years. So good news for all of that. Now on the other side, this has been an absolutely insane year for goatheads and ants. Now when I run on my trails, There are just thousands of ant hills. Horned toads are the only lizards out west that eat ants, and I have almost stepped on a few that were sitting on top of anthills snacking away....

Now the other thing that has been happening often this year, is when my foot lands on or near an anthill with red ants, one or more of them jump on my running shoes and work their way up to my ankle and bite me.....damn bites hurt and get me swatting at my ankles. Now the trouble for the horned toads is that rattlers love them. So that also increases the chance that those damn rattlers cross my running path......

So that is the ant problem.....The other problem is the goathead problem. With all the rain, this has been a bumper crop for goatheads. Now, I am running on a clean car lane wide dirt track around the luna county maintenance facility and on the paved asphalt bike path....but it doesn't seem to matter! I am now getting between 15 and 20 goatheads per shoe sole every time I head out. This is a pain in the ass, but is easily resolved with about 15 minutes of work with deb's old eyebrow tweezers. But the other problem, is bike riding! I have ridden my new single speed bike three times to the gym, only to come out and find a flat tire from goatheads. Now I paid extra to have these gatorskin tires put on the bike, but I should have done more research. All the bike blogger guys say they are not substantially better than regular tires. SO, a week from saturday when I head into las cruces to run a 2 mile race, I will head over to the bike shop and have them put tire liners in the tires as well as thorn proof tubes, or talk to them about filling the tires with slime or something. The liners on my other bike have been flawless.......not a single flat since I bought the bike, so I gotta believe they know what to do.....in the meantime, it is driving the passat to the gym!