Buzzzz!!
LeAnn posted this blog on Tuesday, August 31st, 2010 at 11:32 pm
It’s getting so that people are afraid to go outside here around Rural Route 2.
You no more than step out the door, and there they are — biting, buzzing, sucking blood when they get a chance.
It has been four or five years since we’ve had any mosquitoes around, not since the drought became severe. But this summer, what with all the rain we’ve had, the mosquitoes have had plenty of places to lay their eggs.
They weren’t too bad up until a couple of weeks ago. Then all of a sudden, there they were. In the past, you could usually count on the mosquitoes getting bad around sunset and bothering until after full dark. But not this year. The mosquitoes are bad all night long. I go out to check the horses before I go to bed, and the mosquitoes are still buzzing and biting.
It is so bad that Kajun and Isabelle don’t go out in their pastures in the evening or at night. Kajun stands in the barn and Isabelle keeps to her shelter.
I feed Isabelle grain outside, and by the time she is done eating, she has mosquitoes all over her. I spray fly spray on the poor horse to chase the mosquitoes away so she can go back to her shelter. Kajun eats his grain inside so it’s not so much of a problem for him. I suppose I could try to feed Isabelle in her shelter, but it might be a little hazardous getting the grain in there with a horse cavorting around and trying to knock me down to get her breakfast or supper.
The mosquitoes are even bad first thing in the morning. When I go outside with Pixie, there they are.
Wednesday morning I stopped at the cemetery to get the hanging pot. The petunias are done, and I wanted the pot to hang mums at the newspaper office. I got out of my truck, walked across the grass to get the planter, and I had mosquitoes all over my arms. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough, let me tell you.
Later in the morning, I walked down the street to the rescue squad to get pictures of their new quarters for the newspaper, and as I stood in the shop where the ambulances are parked to talk to the rescue squad director, the mosquitoes were really bad in there. Inside. In the middle of the morning.
It is like the mosquitoes have been waiting for their chance for the past four or five years and are going to be absolutely certain they find as much blood as they can.
I don’t want it freeze hard just yet — and that doesn’t seem too likely with lows overnight of 70 degrees and highs in the day of 95 degrees — but it would be nice to get rid of some of those mosquitoes. . .
LeAnn R. Ralph
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