Driving Me Buggy

Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it. ~ Russel Baker

It's hot here. Really, really hot. I'm seriously trying not to complain, because all winter I crave the heat. But, it's also humid. Really, really humid. Humid enough that, as Groovy said yesterday, even the toilets sweat (a leave puddles on the floor... ugh). I miss dry heat. Colorado was amazing. Pretty much zero humidity. You could blow the snow off your car with a puff of breath. I think I shoveled snow twice in five years -- and once was the huge blizzard of 1997.

No humidity also means NO BUGS. I don't think I saw so much as one mosquito the entire time I lived there. Here? Swarms. Mosquitoes, black flies, deer flies and so much more. I had to learn an entire new list of bugs when I moved out here. And last night, I saw a frightening site: my first Japanese Beetle. It was one of those pale brown ones that I consider the advance search party. He was hanging out on my front door screen when I went to bed. The good news is, that means black fly season is pretty much done. The bad news is -- these guys are VORACIOUS.

So, the routine will begin again: DD and I walking around the yard with a bucket of soapy water (soapy, because they can get out of regular water and keep flying) and gloves (because they have really pokey feet and cling to your skin -- ouch!) picking beetles from the trees and plants on a daily basis. Japanese beetles are an import and have no natural enemy here, though there is a project underway to develop cold hearty wasps that predate on them. I'm not certain the cure isn't worse than the problem...

I suppose I could just spray, but I have an issue with random poisoning. It's like taking antibiotics (something I also have an issue with): it kills the good AND the bad bugs. Yesterday, I was looking for ant traps. For some reason we have zillions of ants this year. We've never had this big a problem. I ended up with some for the sweet loving ants, but not the carpenter ants -- because the stuff for carpenter ants also kills spiders. Spiders are good bugs in my book -- they eat other bugs and don't damage my plants or my house. Why kill them? Because they're ugly? That hardly seems fair, and besides, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Check out this beauty we had on our peony a couple years ago -- isn't she gorgeous?



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In case you can't tell from my rambling post, above, I'm a bit sleep deprived today. I stayed up last night trying to get into the Wild Rose Press chat, but couldn't get Java to work on my laptop -- it would say Java wasn't installed, and yet when I went to the Java webpage, it checked and said it was. I finally reinstalled it and it still wouldn't work. ARGH!! Very frustrating, especially after staying up late (for me) to chat.

Then DH had to go in to work early. He needed to be up by 3:30 a.m., but as always because he had to be up early, he couldn't sleep, ergo I couldn't sleep. He finally got up, showered and left around 3 a.m. I closed my eyes until about 4:30 until the cat jumped on me, wondering why I was sleeping in and not feeding her.

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Do you suppose it's wrong to post reviews of my own stories on LASR? Not ones I do, of course, but someone else? I was just thinking about that this morning... and wondered what the general population thought...

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What Your Sleeping Position Says

You are calm and rational. You are also giving and kind - a great friend. You are easy going and trusting. However, you are too sensible to fall for mind games.

What Does Your Sleeping Position Say About You?

I sleep on my side usually, though sometimes on my back. Never, ever on my stomach (doesn't that make your neck hurt? It does mine). What about you?