Every evening, as I sit on the front porch pew acting as a mediator during Jack and Juno's nightly snack meeting...mosquitoes flit around my head. I know the winter (and I use that term loosely) has been unseasonable warm. But you'd think those darn mosquitoes might have died during that one week of icy, school-missin' weather.
I told Farmer H, a few nights ago as he sat in the metal chair that gets blown off the end of the porch during tornado season, "Something needs to be done about these mosquitoes! They're all over the place!" Meaning they were stealthily flitting around my head.
"I know. Look at the size of THAT one!" Farmer H did not seem to sense the urgency of my statement. Or appear at all inclined to doing anything about the mosquitoes. The one he was impressed with was on his arm at the time.
"I guess they're in that log down there." It's an old log, dead for quite some time, which has been there for years. But there's a little moss on it. I figure those mosquitoes must be living in the cracks. It's moist.
"I doubt it. The sewer trap is right under where you're sitting." Let the record show that the front porch pew is against the outer wall of the master bathroom. And the porch is composed of wooden boards, with crack room in between them. And that the porch sits about two-and-a-half feet off the ground, with lattice board covering the front edge to the ground. AND that if there's one thing Farmer H knows, it's sewer traps and how they work.
Still, he showed no inclination to do anything about those woman-eating pests. I have SIX bites! All inflicted within the past two days.
No. That's not me auditioning to be a model for one of those remote-control holders, or glasses holders. And it's not really as dark as the far, unexplored corridors of the Mammoth Cave system on my front porch. It's my bad hand-me-down phone camera again.
Look. I have a bite on my wrist. I think it's ready to grow its own body. That red shiny part of my hand is not a bite. It's just residue from when I was breaking up the dog snack of gas station chicken breast and wing bones. The index finger has a bite on the first joint crack. It is painful when I try to bend that finger. The ring finger has TWO bites, at the first joint crack, very itchy, which has swollen the fingertip portion due to my scratching. The other is at the second finger joint. And the pinky finger has a bite on the side of the finger at the first joint. My right wrist has a matching bite like the left one. It was first.
Here's my theory. I am busy chatting with Farmer H, or supervising the dogs so they don't steal each other's plate, and I don't notice when I'm being bitten. I sit with my left hand on the pew, fingers curved under the seat. I guess that's when they got me.
Something really needs to be done about the pest situation. You decide which one I'm referring to.
4 comments:
To the chopper (or the chipper) for one.
The other pests... I am waiting (and not very patiently now) for a good, hard freeze. That will kill some of those pesky bugs (before they come back in the spring).
Having been raised in swamp country, I am familiar with mosquito bites. When we moved to the frozen tundra (Minnesota), I did not expect to encounter the rabid hoards of mosquitoes. They seem to multiply rapidly under ice. We don't have a big problem here, with the martens that return and nest here every year and the bats. The bats stay in the cave about a mile from us, but they feed here. I am sure Hick could build you some marten houses. They return every year. The bats, well, since the auction doesn't have live animals anymore ....
I think you mean the mosquitos, but I can't be sure!!
Sioux,
The big pest said only a few hours ago, when I said I had to go inside because I was being eaten alive, "I don't know what you're carrying on about. They don't bother ME." Uh, yeah. Because they swarm up right out from under where I'm sitting, and can't resist this tasty morsel.
If only I could turn one pest against the other...
***
Kathy,
If they were out in the open, in standing water, and IF we still had our flock of 30+ chickens...we wouldn't have this problem.
AND, to make life even more unfair, as we were sitting there tonight, Farmer H hollered, "Did you see THAT? It was a bat!" A lot of good a bat does, when the swarm is under the porch.
***
fishducky,
Sometimes, it's best not to think. Go with your gut.
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