How is the mosquito population in your area? We have a few extra here if anyone wants them. UGH!
NE MN - We’ve had at least some type of rain just about every single day for over a month. It could be a light mist, a little sprinkle, a downpour, a thunderstorm, hail, - you name any form of rain and we’ve had it at least once but more than likely numerous times. Yesterday it shaped up to be a grand summer day - high 70s, lots of sun and just a slight breeze. In my book, that’s a perfect summer day. I went out to the garage around 4pm with the sun shining down on me and I saw what I thought was some weird pollen in the air. Nope, it was rain. It barely sprinkled but it was still rain.
The mosquitoes are having a heyday. They are so bad that some mornings when I walk the dogs, I have to wear a head net. I’m not walking in the woods, I’m walking on the sidewalk! I have to wipe the dogs down with bug spray before we leave otherwise their backs get coated with mosquitoes. I find dead mosquitoes in the shower and there are live mosquitoes hanging out on various walls in the house.
We’re putting up an gazebo with netting today. Otherwise we will never be able to be outside this summer…if we ever have one. It was a year without a winter and now it looks like a year without a summer.
It’s not too terrible here (Sacramento, CA area), but I think it’s because we went from moderately comfortable spring to boiling hot magma and dry AF practically overnight, so the mosquitoes did not have a long period to build up their numbers before everything dried out.
I was in the mountains over the weekend and the mosquito numbers there also were not bad. It got me wondering if there is any place in the world outside of Antarctica that is absent mosquitoes?
Aside from Antarctica and some polar islands, only Iceland is free of them. Mosquitos occasionally show up there but don’t survive over the winter, so don’t become established.
They’re bad by me (western shore of Lake Michigan) but not as bad as some past years when we actually had to wear mosquito netted headgear to just go outside. Back then if we didn’t do that, inhaling mosquitos with every intake of breath occurred. Even with mouths closed! Nostril mosquitos are not pleasant.
I fear we may have such a bumper crop again here as this summer advances. Copious rains and the death of our forest’s ash trees due to the ash borer have turned more of the local land into swamp.
It’s most annoying because as an old person, I no longer hear their warning buzz and I don’t even feel the bite as often as I used to. But damn, the resultant itch is worse than ever!
I have yet to be bothered by them here in SE Michigan outside of Detroit. Been out on the deck every evening and nothing. Loads of fireflies, but no pest.
So naturally I have just jinxed myself and they will arrive with a vengence tonight.
The most mosquitoes I’ve ever encountered were in Anchorage, Alaska. There’s a beautiful green park there with walking paths, but damn! How can anyone enjoy it? Northern New England can be bad too, but somehow there seem to be fewer there now than say thirty years back. These are not scientific observations.
I live in the city now. We don’t have 'em here. Not much anyway.
Around my house, mosquitos have never been much of a problem. But I’ll tell you what is a problem: deer flies. I hate those damn things. They attack you, and go right for the neck. (This time of year, I wear a hat with a blue cup attached to it, and then apply a coating of Tangle-Trap Sticky Coating to the cup. It’s very effective at trapping those bastards.)
It is called Beurer BR 10 (there are also other models) and works by heating the place where the mosquito has bitten you for a couple of seconds. The heat is enough to neutralize the histamine that causes the itching, but it does not get so hot as to cause a blister or a burn: it does not hurt. Small and lightweight, uses no chemical products, so no alergies or problems with pregnancy or other medication, it sounds too good to be true; I did not believe it would work. But it does.
My swamp is full of mosquitoes, of course. But they are not in the city yet.
It has been raining heavily in parts of Germany, mainly in the south, but the main problem seems to be that it is not windy at. Where the mosquitoes breed, they stay. And keep on breeding. I have not noticed this plague in Berlin.
Last year in Southern California, we got an unusual tropical storm that brought out the mosquitos in force for the first time I can remember in 30 years. We had a lot of rain this year, but I’m hoping we don’t see a repeat. Last year was horrible in that regard.
houses.