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!

Terry and mosquitoes

Tonight's campground (Roughrider Campground in Minot, ND) is bordered on two sides by a still body of water. While this may be nice for some ducks, and a family of Canada geese, it also serves as a breeding ground for mosquitoes.

Terry and I walked up to the camp store after dinner to get our dessert--ice cream, of course. We were out for maybe 15 minutes. Terry got three mosquito bites and had a dozen or more swarming to get to know her Type O neg a little better. She had on a long sleeve sweater, too. Of course it was black (a no-no as far as biting bugs is concerned) and long pants. I had on a short sleeve T-shirt and got no bites despite staying outside twice as long as she did.

The Alaskan mosquitoes are going to drain her dry! (She's going to need a gallon of DEET.)

More on the AAF (Adirondack Air Force)

In mentioning the deer fly and black fly contingent of the Adirondack Air Force (AAF--stalwart defenders of the North Country) in last evening's post, I forgot to mention the evening and night time squadrons: no-see-ums and mosquitoes. I can not speak of strength of the forces of the skeeters for I stayed inside behind the defenses of the screened windows and sliding doors, but the no-see-ums! Oy!

The little buggers may be smaller than the head of a pin but that belies their ferociousness in the fight. They easily fit through the screen's mesh and are attracted by any light you may have on inside your abode. Once inside, they are stealth incarnate. You can't really see them unless you are totally focused upon every little dust mote that may be flittering about. You certainly can not hear them for their tiny wings make no sound recognizable to the human ear. Their weight is so slight that they go unnoticed when they land upon your skin. But boy oh boy can you feel them bite!

And bite they do! With all the subtlety of a chainsaw. Your first indication of their presence may be the sharp stinging sensation skin to a pair of needle nosed pliers being applied to your arm or neck. They are hard to dismiss. They don't take much blood when compared to the amount a deer fly, mosquito or even a black fly takes, but they leave behind an irritation all out of proportion to their size.

I'm fortunate enough that the bite of a deer fly, mosquito and even a no-see-um will cause a very short term itch and swelling. A little application of After Bite may, in fact, reduce the irritation long enough for it to disappear. Perhaps that's part of the value of six years of allergy shots I got when I was in my late 20's. (That and protection against the occasional bee/wasp sting that could have killed me.)

Black fly bites (which I managed to avoid yesterday some how) are a different story. They must not have been in the serum the doctor shot me up with on a weekly, then bi-weekly and finally monthly basis. Those bites last for weeks. And itch the entire time. If I'm foolish enough to scratch, then the scar really does last for ever. I've a few on my shins right above the sock line and on my arms to prove it.

******

Why am I writing about the AAF at 7 AM? Because one of the countermeasures, a Phoebe, decided to serenade me at 5 AM with a loud and repetitive call that made sleep impossible. I'd go out and throttle the damn bird except it eats lots of deer flies. Perhaps it was just angry that I killed so many while cutting the lawn yesterday.

(As for the other major countermeasure, the Dragonfly, I saw far too few while walking the mower about yesterday. Now swallows around here, either. And bats? They have pretty much disappeared due to the white-nose fungus that hit the wintering colonies.)

Up early this morning due to the birds raising a ruckus outside so I was on the road heading north by 7 AM. After 205 miles I pulled into the yard at the Bolt Hole. Taking the shortest route still takes about four hours. Since it's mostly state highways, however, there's less incentive to zoom along at 65-70 mph and that, in turn, brought my mpg down to a respectable 19.4 on this trip--village speed limits and stop lights not withstanding. Once I've got the trailer in tow I'm not likely to see those numbers for a long time.

First thing I had to do when I got to the Bolt Hole was go back down to Stewarts to get some gas for the lawn mower. I filled up the truck while I was at it so I won't have to do it int he morning. That little trip--to Stewarts and back is 26 miles. All for two stinking gallons of gas.

Cutting the grass was a no brainer. In a week and a half, it had grown six inches. It's not likely to get cut again for some time, but at least it looks good now with all the hawk weed trimmed. Some of that had started to flower. The yellow hawk week comes first then the orange. I was cutting the yellow flowers today--along with the grass and plantain. That's quite an improvement over the abandoned field of goldenrod and milkweed that we had when we bought the place back in the early 80s. The Bolt Hole (then called Little Pines) had been vacant for three years when we finally took possession.

Cutting the grass was no problem, as I said. It was warm--in the low 70s--and humid under a bright sun and I sweat off a few pounds of water weight, but the feared black flies were nowhere to be seen. The deer flies, however, were a different story.

Why do the deer flies always seem to bite on the knuckles or elbows or your ears or the nape of your neck? I must have got eight or nine bites but killed at least three times that many flies. And I mean squashed to a pulp. Merely swatting a deer fly is not going to kill it. Sure, it may fall to the ground, but that's just a ploy that allows the fly to catch its breath before jumping back into the fray. No, to kill a deer fly you must see blood. It will probably be yours, but you need to crush that critter until it pops. And then roll it into a tiny little ball of unidentifiable nothingness.

Took me three hours to finish cutting the grass as I took my time and stopped for water several times and for lunch along the way.

******
Once the grass was cut, I rested for an hour and then dragged myself outside to hitch up the trailer. It was now close to five in the afternoon and the sky had clouded up some. The deer flies were gone. The black flies had come back. If they had been out in the numbers I ran into while performing my hitching routine while I was cutting grass, I would have had to don my net suit or die. They were out after blood hot and heavy. Even Deep Woods Off was no help for the little buffalo gnats seem to find any patch of skin the spray misses and should you perspire at all...well, that washes away the Off pretty quickly.

I got the job done in the face of superior numbers and I am ready to roll in the morning.

The 27' Wilderness is hitched and ready.

I had only one slight problem and that came when I went to check the lights. The running lights on the trailer were fine. Right turn signal AOK. But the left turn signal and the brake light on the left were no shows.

I checked the plug that runs from the truck to the trailer. No luck. I pulled the cover off the tail light to check the bulb and it seemed to be fine (and HOT to the touch!). I then turned the lights off, waited a few minutes--battling black flies all the while--and pulled the light out of the socket to examine it more closely. Looked OK so I put it back in. Turned on the lights and flicked the direction on and BINGO! It worked! I'm a bloody genius! Just wish I knew what the heck I did. There was lots of dust inside the light fixture and I can only assume that some of that was in the socket screwing up the connection. That was one of the reasons I pulled the plug and reattached the truck to trailer--dust, dirt, grime. Comes from living on a dirt road.

******

Got a phone call from Terry. Like clockwork, I left to go to the Bolt Hole and she gets a bear at the bird feeders! At 2:30 in the afternoon. Oh well, I had finished the bag of sunflower seeds anyway and had no intention of opening another. I just hope that the tube feeders were not completely destroyed.

******
Just 6 more days before we haul out of PA heading west.

Adirondack Air Force

I’m not the only one who has made mention of the Adirondack Air Force: Biting Insect Grand Slam

The good news is that with the current warm spell, we may see the black fly numbers dop sooner rather than later to their usual summer levels. It takes about two weeks of really warm temperatures to get them all out of the streams, feeding and then laying eggs and dying.

Unfortunately, deer flies, mosquitoes and no-see-ums will be around until the first good frost. (Although, dry weather will cause the mosquitoes and no-see-ums to decline.)