Ant Pompeii...

We may not have invented the idea, but in 1962 when we did this, it sure felt that way. David and I had a simultaneous epiphany when we realized that molten lead was exactly what we needed to make an ant tree.

There had been an immense red ant colony under a large grey slate that was part of the path leading from the back door of my house, out to the driveway. The colony was healthier than most due to regular feedings. When Mom took Dad to the train station for his ride into the city every morning, I lifted that slate and scraped the eggs I couldn’t eat for breakfast off of my plate. There was a depression under there where eggs and Kippered Herring fit perfectly, and enough ants to devour food quickly. After a while, I knew the colony must have a huge underground structure.

Although we had the idea of pouring something down that ant hole, we didn’t know what to use. Whatever it was had to flow quickly down to the very bottom and branch out into every chamber as it filled to the top. It also had to hold its structural integrity when we dug it up. We needed to be able to dig out that cavernous ant condo, complete with all rooms, cells, and yes…antechambers too.

Plaster wouldn’t hold together when we dug it up and cement would set too quickly. Both would just block the entrance. 

It was when we were over at David’s house, where antique guns rested in the living room corners, that the idea came to us. Black powder and lead for shot were in plentiful supply at his house. We frequently melted lead down in an iron ladle over the flame of his kitchen stove. We used molten lead for all kinds of stuff that most mothers would be horrified to know about.

On a day when we were alone in the house, we had taken David’s sisters door off of her bedroom and had it laid out flat on the kitchen table. With one side of the keyhole plugged by modeling clay, we poured lead into the other. Susan kept her door locked all the time, regardless of if she was there or not. Now she couldn’t even get a key in. We loved knowing it would make her crazy. But more importantly, we both realized that molten lead would be perfect to pour into that ant hill.
Molten lead could maintain its heat. It was heavy enough to flow all the way down to the bottom chambers before solidifying and strong enough to hold its shape when we dug it up.

The next day, we waited for my mother to go out for the afternoon and immediately started melting the lead. With the slate paver flipped over, we made about ten runs, back and forth to the stove and the anthill, pouring the led down into the hole in that red dirt. Once full, we let the metal cool and harden and then started in on the surrounding dirt with a garden hose. Turning the dirt into mud, digging with hands and arms, feeling the structure of the anthill under a puddle of muck, and slowly freeing the entire structure enough to pull it right out of the earth.

All that mud wallowing took about three hours and demanded that we sink our four synchronized arms down as far as possible with our faces turned sideways in the mud. Armpit deep. My right ear was plugged for two days.

But we got it out. It looked like a big, gloppy, sludge ball with a Christmas tree interior. We sat it to one side as we filled the hole back up with dry dirt and replaced the covering slate stepping stone. Mom would never know.

Hosing off our mud baby on the thick grass of the back yard was like digging out Tutankhamen’s tomb. We knew there is something special in there but had no idea just how special it was.

Turning the cast upside down so it rested on the top, a strong stream from the hose made short work of the mud and revealed a 2.5-foot structure that shone brightly in the sun. It was way more intricate than we could have imagined. Every room, chamber, connecting tunnel and shaft was perfectly captured in lead.

Although I wouldn’t recommend the molten lead method to permanently remove an ant colony, it sure was effective. All the ants were forever frozen at their stations, an ant Pompeii.

David and I were delighted. We built a wooden frame around our prize and hung it in the middle. We turned it into our ninth grade biology teacher as a joint project, for which we both got an A+.

It was so cool; I wish I still had that thing. Unfortunately, when we went into our teacher at the end of the year to reclaim our masterpiece, it had been destroyed. Our teacher blamed another teacher and a lack of storage space. The frame was gone and the whole lead anthill had been smashed down into a heavy ball.

Those bastards.

Oh well, you can buy one on Etsy these days anyway if you have an extra $250. and don’t mind having one made out of aluminum… but David and I thought of it first, and we made the best one ever...