SELF DEFENSE

       One would think that this time of the year would bring out the happy in everyone.  The peonies and roses are in bloom, the roadsides look like someone has gone and purposely decorated them with wild flowers, and if you know where to look for them, the prairie lilies are beginning to bloom.

       The grass is so green and lush.

       The air is fresh and moist.

       After a very dry spring Mother Nature came through with significant rain and the sloughs are full.  The ground drank in what it could hold and the rest flowed into our yard where it’s busy processing a billion mosquitoes per hour.   Yes, folks, that’s where they’re all coming from; our front yard.  Sorry.  But it’s not like they have all left to torment you – several million opted to stay on the home place. 

      It’s a beautiful time of the year.  Everything is so clean.  Hummingbirds flit around the deck chattering at each other and sipping sugar water, spring calves chase each other around in the pasture, and Killdeers play their ‘broken wing’ ruse on anyone who ventures too close to their nests.  This kind of pastoral scene brings out the best in all of us.  If we left our TV sets off and never watched the news, just think how happy and content we would all be.

      We would be even happier yet, if we could only go outside and enjoy it all.  I know I would.  I really don’t mind weeding gardens, and mowing grass is one of my favourite chores to do.  Being outside is what I dream about all winter.  It’s funny how a person can blot out ugly memories of mosquitoes when it’s forty below in January.  I guess the opposite is also true –as I slather myself in nasty insect repellent memories of forty below mellow out and are almost pleasant in comparison.

       The species plaguing us at the moment, probably called something like vicious torturious, is a particularity nasty one.  With some species you can hear them coming, but if they get in close enough to bite you don’t feel the puncture.  With these guys the opposite is true; they seem to have no sound but their bite is vicious.  Is that Mother Nature’s idea of balance, I wonder?  She has such a wonderful sense of humour, Mother Nature does.

       It’s the sheer numbers that are crazy this year.  Walking across the lawn is unpleasant, step into the shade and a visible cloud of them lift off the ground and come for you, try weeding the garden and you will be amazed at the number of bloodsuckers that can hide out in a single tomato plant.  I wouldn’t recommend trying to mow between the rows of evergreen trees unless you have 911 pre-dialled on your phone and your blood type pinned to your shirt in case you need a transfusion when they find you.

       Desperate times call for desperate measures.  Facebook keeps insisting that a mixture of stale beer (I ask you, who lets beer go stale?), Epsom salts, and cheap blue mouthwash will make your yard mosquito free for a whole summer.  I have trust issues with what Facebook pushes, but this information was verified by a real live person whose opinion I do trust, so I gave it a whirl.  Some key areas are better, but I can’t afford the beer to treat my whole yard.

       Plan B is electrocution.  I have purchased the Flowtron Outdoor Insect Killer and as I write this a Tower of Doom is being constructed to hang it on.  Actually, it would already be busy killing bugs by now except that the creator of the Tower of Doom decided to get all decretive and fancy with the drill stem he was using.  The first attempt at erecting his creation also didn’t go as planned ... but that’s a story for another time.

       Luckily I have other things to do today.  Appointments and meetings, a lunch date and an oil change for my car; I will be gone all day.  The weeds will continue to grow and the grass will need cut again but I don’t have any guilt about leaving them today, and that super duper bug killer will be on duty by tonight. 

       It’s funny how I have so much more faith in Plan B than I did in stale beer.  Driving to a special store and paying lots of money must establish authenticity, I guess.

       Sure do hope it does work, though.  Plan C is embracing the forty below solution.