Where's Juan Rico and his Roughneckswhen you need them.

The warm, sunny days we have been enjoying here at the Aerie come with a price: bugs. There's been a huge number of stink bugs and lady bugs coming to the nicely warmed walls of the western corner (right under the covered portion of the porch). They're looking for a nook or cranny into which they may crawl to hibernate the winter away. And on a log home there are plenty of nooks and crannies. In the late afternoon/early evening there are dozens and dozens of the little buggers crawling all over the place or flying about. If you step outside you're going to get landed upon. Luckily they are non-biting!

Every day a few of the pests make it into the house to the great joy of the cats who chase them about and point them out to me. (They aren't stupid enough to eat them although they DO enjoy the occasional moth that gets into the house--much as I enjoy a powdered donut from time to time. Come to think of it, if the two--lady bugs and stink bugs WERE edible, we would have some pretty fat birds outside hanging on the porch.) When the temperature drops during the night some of them fall to the deck and lie there in a stupor. (Or maybe it's the bug spray I sprayed along the base of the wall.) I take that opportunity to crush as many of the stink bugs as possible and then sweep them off the deck. Twenty or thirty a morning has not been unusual. Feels like a scene out of Starship Troopers. (Book. Movie. There's almost a 180 degree difference int he message presented by Heinlein's book and the Paul Verhoeven (director) and Edward Neumeier (writer) film.)

Anyway, I thought this was worth commenting on as I don't recall seeing so many bugs in the time we've November 2006 to present). Seems I wasn't wrong as there's a huge jump nationwide in the stink bug population: Stink Bugs On The Rise In The U.S.

While 2010 was particularly rough, National Geographic noted that 2013 was "shaping up to be another bad year," with 60 percent more bugs reported than the same time last year.

UPDATE: Upon further examination, what we seem to have is NOT an infestation of stink bugs but of boxelder bugs. That makes sense with number of both maple and ash trees around the house and the lack of "stink" when I crush the suckers! They're still a PITA!