And this year's organic gardening grossness trophy (currently held by last year's winner, the tomato hornworm) will be taken by the aphids and their disgusting ant puppeteers. Whilst checking upon how my garden fared while I was away, and marvelling at the way my weeds are thriving, I noticed yucky little black things and ants on my strawberry plants. In and of itself, not nearly the ball of gag reflex that the tomato horn worm is. Until I looked up how to rid my garden of them in a safe way. (For the record, a dish soap and water mix and/or lady bugs--you can call them Miss Beetle if you're nasty.)

And thus discovered that the ants harvest  and ingest some secretion produced by said  aphids and do their damnest to protect them from predators and even go so far as to safely carry them into their ant dens and then return them to the plant. I found websites describing the ants as "milkers" as the aphids are their own personal herd of dairy cows. OH MY GOD.

Even while part of me secretly marvels at this amazing feat of the insect world and the symbiotic relationship unfolding amongst my strawberries, another part of me really wishes they all just still looked like ants running amok amongst little black dots. Because knowing that those ants are milking those aphids makes me want to hurl.