I Am Not a Mosquito

Wet, warm weather, and for the first time this year hearing airborne buzzing around me I was unable to process it because: I forgot there are mosquitoes! I slapped at the air, so that anyone watching would have thought I was doing the Macarena. Winter was so long, I forgot that country air is not only full of pollen but rife with flying, biting insects.

As I fled I saw this huge mosquito on the side of the house and thought, wow, climate change is causing mutations, because they seem only to get bigger and bigger! And took a photo, and, safe on my screened porch, I thought, I've never seen a mosquito with such pretty wings. And looked it up. It's not a mosquito. It's a crane fly, of the family Tipulidae. It is a sign of spring and bites nobody. It eats nectar, not blood. They live 10 to 15 days.

Doin' the Wild Thing

Returned from a hike and in my absence two huge mosquitoes had hooked up and were doing the wild thing on my kitchen screen door. I spent half a hour getting a good photo and they are still there. The least I could do was continue my Divine tradition of bringing you photographs that no one else will.

It's been very rainy and just got warm enough to turn off the furnace, so I think this photo might be a hint of things to come. All Eastern Missouri is one big puddle of standing water. I got the last bottle of lavender-scented soap that was on the shelf at Wal-Mart. (Lavender is a mosquito repellent.)