At War With Bugs

I believe that with the changing of the seasons, the insects are searching for any bit of warmth they can find, and it almost seems like we are under siege by them.

Recently while camping, the husband/lover/best friend and I had some skirmishes with bees and flies.  The day we arrived at our campsite, and the moment I got out of our vehicle, I got stung on my hand in my pocket by a bee.

Apparently the bee got into my pocket just a millisecond before my hand did, and my hand looked like a big threat, so he did battle with me.  Now it has been years since I was stung by a bee, but this encounter brought back the memories of how a sting can make you do some ridiculous flailing and thrashing and squeezing of the stung part and saying lots of bad words nearly bring you to tears.

When we were young kids, we would spend our summer mornings getting our chores done, so that after lunch we could head as a family to the community pool.  That seemed to be a place where lots of kids got stung, as the bees loved to hang around the clover, and we were all barefoot, of course.

 I didn't know of anyone at that time that was allergic to bee stings, but now that I have children of my own, I have watched them get stung throughout the years, and one of them seems to show increasingly worse symptoms each time she gets stung.  The last time she was stung it was between the eyes on the bridge of her nose.  The following day she had no bridge on her nose, and the bruising all around both eyes appeared as if she had been in a boxing ring the night before.  Is she developing an allergy?  I don't know, but she would probably be wise to avoid bees.

That week while we were camping (mid-September), we also noticed that at a certain time of the day, the flies descended en masse.  They landed on us, on our food and drinks, on the books we were reading, and all over our camper.  The gyrations we both did to enter and exit the camper in as swift and skinny a mode as possible would have been hilarious to watch.  Luckily nobody else was camped anywhere near to us.  Even so, too many flies were able to get in there somehow.

Here is a view at about 4:00 PM looking out the door of our camper.  You can clearly see the hoards waiting for an ambush.  Those stinkers were relentless once they showed up each day, and needless to say we dined inside.

I've also recently noticed an increase of little spiders around outside our home.  The are probably strategizing on how and when to move their forces inside.  This little guy was on guard on my car's driver side mirror this morning.

My oldest daughter Rachel is a bit of an arachnophobe, so I'm sure she is fairly spazzing out as she looks at this picture.  Sorry Rachel, but it is a battle and they are all around us.

Last, and probably the most annoying and prevalent insects I have seen lately, are those stink bugs.  They are getting in the house, in the camper, and probably marching toward our vehicles too as I write this.

I have been told that they should never be squished in the house due to the hellacious smell that will be released, and so I've been careful to gently capture each one in a tissue and either flush it or set it free outside.  

However, we recently had an unexpected and darn near sickening stink bug happening.  The other day my son and his dog returned from a long walk.  The minute they entered the room we were in, we screamed for them to get out - it smelled as if he had tracked dog poop into the house. 

 But after we all checked our shoes and determined we were all clear, he noticed that the puppy's breath reeked.  It practically threw him back across the room.  Our theory is that she had chewed up a stink bug.  She's fascinated with any small moving insects, and most likely took it in as a snack.  After a treatment with doggy toothpaste and mouth freshener, the stench was gone.

So what's happening in YOUR neck of the woods?  Are you doing battle with the bugs?

And if so, WHO's WINNING?

The Spider I ate.....

......almost!

This blog entry I dedicate to my oldest daughter Rachel, who I find glee in terrorizing and tormenting is terrified of spiders.  I don't know why or how she developed this tendency, as we never modeled this behavior at home during her growing up years.  Watching her in the presence of a spider is thoroughly comical and entertaining.  For us.  I do have the capacity to feel a small sympathy for her though, as I am the same way about snakes.

The near-eating of the spider in my home reminded me of an amusing movie I had seen about 20 years ago.  Wow, does time fly!  I saw the movie "Arachnophobia" shortly after it came out in 1990.

Starring Jeff Daniels and John Goodman, it is a comedy horror about a small American town whose residents are being bitten and killed, one by one, by a deadly strain of spiders.  Perhaps Rachel watched this movie in her formative years, I don't know.  She would have been about 10 or 11 when she saw it.  Maybe I'm a bad mother.  (I was allowed to watch "The Wizard of Oz" at a young age, and I had nightmares for years about that wicked witch of the west.)

Here's what happened in my home:  I was walking from my kitchen down our little hallway towards the living room, when, at the last moment, I skidded to a stop, realizing that a spider was hanging down right in front of my open mouth!  I almost ate that sucker!  

I backed up and took this picture.  (I held a paper behind it so you would be able to see it.)

I'm sure it's just a harmless little house spider, but I did think of Rachel, and knew that she would cringe at the thought of actually EATING a spider.  

Apparently, many people have phobias about spiders.  My niece Keturah recently posted on Facebook about a spider she found in her back yard, in some play equipment she has there for her kids.  Here is the spider she found:

She was asking her Facebook friends if anyone knew what kind of spider it was, and amazingly, in no time at all she got 36 responses.  Spiders apparently give many a strong visceral response!  I do not know what kind of spider that is, but I have seen them around, and if I recall they are fast and they jump.  I am faster though -----> I am THE ELIMINATOR.

Here's one last photo for Rachel to examine.  It's a flashback from Jamaica.  

I think these little guys are actually crab babies, but they look like fancy spiders.

These critters would be seen on the walls, on the sidewalks, anywhere.  And, sometimes there were literally hundreds of them fanning out in front of you on the sidewalk where you were trying to walk.  However, they were fast, so even if you were walking barefoot (imagine that Rachel!) you wouldn't step on them.  

"There was an old woman who swallowed a fly,

I don't know why she swallowed a fly,

Perhaps she'll die.

There was an old woman who swallowed a spider,

it wiggled and jiggled and tiggled in side her,

Perhaps she'll die....."

Folks - do you remember that song?

Rachel - do you?

I DO!