Bugged

If there is one thing I dislike more in summer than heat, humidity, weeds and deer, it is insects.

The huge amount of rain that fell in August spawned a bumper crop of mosquitoes that, along with the biting flies, hornets, gnats and no-see-ums, make walking difficult, even without heat and humidity. I walk in the bedewed grass in the morning and I come to the porch with bare ankles burning from bites. I walk along my favorite path and where there is standing water a cloud of mosquitoes follows, biting my arms despite flailing them around, or swarming around my knees, smelling the blood from veins near the surface.

State bird of New Jersey (a free picture courtesy of Pixabay)

The estimated ratio of insects to humans is 200 million to one, say Iowa State University entomologists. In the United States, the number of described species is approximately 91,000, according to the Smithsonian Institution. One site that catalogs the bugs found in New Jersey says there are 584. They include the pretty butterflies, the not-so-pretty cockroaches, beetles, spiders, the aphids that will suck the life out of your plants, the ladybugs that will eat the aphids, the almost prehistoric-looking praying mantis and the ticks that are the bane of hikers who go off-road or travel through long grass and rough terrain. The cicadas call during the hot days, the katydids during hot nights and the crickets at all times.

There are also the many types of wasps, hornets, yellow-jackets and bees plus the midges known as no-see-ums, sandflies and chiggers. Travelers to the shore must contend with biting green-headed flies, whose numbers can force birders to look from inside their cars, windows rolled up.

When it comes to mosquitos we are told to remove all standing water. In my case that means frequent changing of the water in the dish I keep out for the birds, the ant moat that keeps insects from covering (and drowning in) the hummingbird feeder and emptying out the excess water from saucers underneath potted plants. But the other bugs I can't see or hear are worse. I push aside the large leaves of the potted canna to water the soil and something bites my arms. I walk in the grass to pick up brush and something bites my ankles. I cut back the overgrowth of the multiflora rose or a vine and something bites my elbow. 

Yes, I know, bugs are part of the circle of life. They are food for birds. While some have been cutting chunks out of the leaves of my plants and shrubs, others have been eating the offenders. Many pollinate the flowers. A bite once in a while I can tolerate, but the increase in the number of bites I am finding on me (some of which don't start getting very itchy until hours after the fact) is, with the intense heat, forcing me indoors more than I'd like, and that has me bugged. 

MH rarely wears short-sleeved shirts in summer. He usually wears long sleeves to protect his arms, particularly when he mows the lawn and disturbs the many insects in the grass that don't appreciate the intrusion. Many of these insects also hide in my garden plants, such as the hornets I discovered using my pot of perennial geranium for their nest last year when I attempted to water it. 

So when the next cool-down comes and it is time to start cutting back the garden - very soon, I hope - I will have to do more to protect myself, too.