Store Room Ecosystem

What does it take to make a sustainable ecosystem?  Hundreds of ants, an open bag of pancake mix, and happy spiders.   I discovered a thriving community in my store room, but can't figure out how the critters found their way into my store room.  It is far, far, far away from any outside entrance or window.

Treener told me she battles ants with borax in a syrup mixture, so I cooked up a batch, added a spoonful of peanut butter for extra protein attraction,  set it out on yogurt lids, then found hundreds of ants drowned in it.  Set out more.  More ants.  Got the piggy vacuum and chased down more ants and spiders.  I feel a bit guilty about the spiders, after all, they were on my team, but everything with more than 2 legs was getting sucked up.  I'd say I'll keep you posted, but you probably don't want to know.  (Nor do you want to know how many times I had to run out of the store room in the process of prepping for the colonscopy this afternoon....I tried to do yard work, but that was a disaster.)

Why does she look like that?

The importance of toilet paper

When I was a teenager there was a huge push at church for family preparedness in case of emergencies. Families were challenged to go for a month without any shopping to see how well they would fare in surviving on their storage. My mom and dad accepted the challenge! It is a tribute to my mom's awesome cooking that we ate well and that she could whip up an amazing meal from simple ingredients found in our store room. HOWEVER, we quickly found out how much toilet paper a family of 7 kids and 2 parents would could run through. I remember some pretty serious discussions at family meetings about using one square. Near the end of the month my folks were encouraging us to go play with our friends and please use their bathrooms before coming home.
My own children probably wonder why every available drawer in each bathroom is stuffed with toilet paper, and why an entire shelf in our store room is devoted to toilet paper. Now you know. 
The other thing I will never run out of is.....