Jul 16
2008
Bugs ‘R’ Us or “Embrace Plagues”
Every day is an adventure when you live in the country.
Just yesterday morning I was gazing out my bathroom window and saw–in a single glance, mind you—two deer (mommy and baby), a brown bunny, a bunch of crows, bluebirds perched on the purple martin gourds, a red-tailed hawk (circling) and, well, bugs. Stink bugs on my upstairs bathroom window, to be precise.
Since we moved out here to the boonies about eight years ago, I have noticed that bugs come in waves. The first year—just a couple of months after we moved into our newly built home–those nasty, hybrid Korean ladybugs arrived. They aren’t really ladybugs. And they stink to high heavens. They collected INSIDE MY NEW HOUSE in the corners of the windows, oh, about 20 feet from the floor. They formed clumps—several clumps—about the size of a softball. Did I mention that this was INSIDE MY NEW HOUSE? I had to send my husband up a very tall ladder carrying the vacuum cleaner to evict them.
The following year we had thousands, nay, MILLIONS of tiny, shiny black bugs that invaded every space and landed on the ceiling. They came in through the screens. They walked through walls! I could only fight them with the vacuum cleaner. (Again with the vacuum.) Every time the little dogs went out, the bugs would come in and I would have to vacuum the ceiling. Dogs out. Bugs in. Vacuum out…Dogs out. Bugs in. Vacuum out…Dogs out. Bugs in. Vacuum out…
The year after that was the fruit fly plague. Again, the vacuum cleaner was my weapon of choice. I could not sit on the couch and read the newspaper without the vacuum cleaner beside me to occasionally suck the swarm that formed around my head.
And tonight, oh tonight! After a hideously long and frustrating day, I have a BRAND NEW SWARM. I took the little dogs out and the zelkovas in the back yard are COVERED with a new and unheard-of-in-these-parts (at least to me) swarm. Here’s what they look like:
Here’s what they look like having, uh, making whoopie:
I know my friend Carol tells me to “embrace bugs.” But frankly, she doesn’t live here in the country. She lives in a nice, tame neighborhood, with a neighborhood association with rules against plagues, in that nice, sedate state of Indiana. Here in the wilds of Southern Maryland we don’t just have bugs, we have plagues. Lemme see Carol write a post entitled “Embrace Plagues!”
By the way, folks, what the heck is this current plague I need to embrace?
