Sunday, October 12, 2008, 06:19
Lady Bugs (Again)
The lady bugs are at it again. I wonder how many of the Asian Lady Beetles we have vacuumed off the ceiling and walls in the last week? They are swarming the house on any warm day with a little sunshine. Randy has been going out with the spray bottle that attaches to the house and putting laundry detergent in it and spraying down the sides of the house. This accomplishes two things: it washes the bugs off the house and probably kills some of them. It also cleans the outside of the house.
I don't really relish the idea of killing the Asian Lady Beetles. They are beneficial for controlling aphids. But by the same token, I also do not want hundreds and hundreds of them inside of the house. Just recently, I was talking to someone who was telling me about a neighbor working on his garage and putting new siding on it. When the old siding was pulled off -- you guessed it. There were thousands of Asian Lady Beetles huddled up underneath the siding. I have had that experience when pulling bales of hay out from the wall in the barn in the winter. The wall is solid lady bugs behind where the bale was.
The Asian Lady Beetles are definitely an example of an introduced, beneficial species that has multiplied to the point where they have become pests. A few Asian Lady Beetles are beneficial. Millions of them can clog up furnaces and laundry vents.
It is unfortunate that we have so many of the Asian Lady Beetles. They ruin what would otherwise be beautiful fall days with lots of color in the oaks and maple leaves and a golden landscape punctuated by the scarlet of the occasional maple and scarlet garlands of five-leaved ivy.
But when the bugs are so bad, a person doesn't even want to go outside much less be outside to enjoy the lovely fall colors. As soon as you step outside, you have lady bugs down your shirt and covering your arms and getting in your hair and behind your glasses. It is out of the question to even think about doing something like painting the barn or the window frames at this time of year. All I would end up with would be thousands of Asian Lady Beetles stuck in the wet paint.
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I'm not quite sure where the week went to. I interviewed a couple of people for the newspaper series I am writing on veterans. One was a Korean veteran. The other was a WAC during World War II. I also covered a couple of meetings for the newspaper. And I just generally tried to keep up with what I had to keep up with.
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The mold is getting bad now, I think. I can tell it in that my eyes itch and my throat itches and my nose drips sometimes when I am out in the wind. Sometimes my eyes water so badly that I cannot hardly see where I am walking or driving. And that's not good.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Wednesday, October 08, 2008, 06:04
A Novel Experience
I had an experience Tuesday that I have not had in years. And that's not just a figure of speech. It is the literal truth: years.
Well, actually, it was a couple of experiences. The first was that I was not able to get myself or Pixie out for a walk Tuesday because it rained all day. And not just a few sprinkles, but a good, steady rain.
The second experience was that I had to have my windshield wipers on "constant" rather than "intermittent" while driving to a village board meeting because it was raining so hard. I really cannot remember the last time I had to turn my windshield wipers on "low" and leave them there.
The third experience was that I actually got quite wet when I came out of the village board meeting in the dark and had to fumble my key into the lock of my little pickup truck until I got the door open. I was wet enough that I was practically shivering and once the truck warmed up, I turned the defroster to high heat and turned up the fan. It's been years since I've gotten wet while trying to get my truck door open.
I should have taken my raincoat with me to the meeting, but it has been years since I have really needed my raincoat. I cannot remember the last time I had the raincoat out of the closet.
All together, I am estimating that we got about an inch and a half of rain. Incredible. It has been a very long time since we've had an all-day rain that lasted well into the evening. It also has been a very long time since it has been raining hard enough while I was driving at night to make it a little difficult to see where I was going.
LeAnn R. Ralph