The balance of nature sometimes bugs me

It seems to me about this time every year I declaim the deer flies and mosquitos are worse than I've every seen them. And every year, one or both of the dogs agrees with me, especially SiSi, who keeps getting bites on her muzzle. Now, if my assessment were accurate, and  the bugs had been bigger and badder each and every year for the past twenty-five or so, you can bet we would have had enough after ten or fifteen years and sold the place. It seems there may be a slight disconnect between my (and SiSi's) perception and reality.

frog feeding at bird bath

Photo by J. Harrington

On the other hand, the mosquitos, deer flies and, some years, black flies are aggravating enough that we gave up gardening years ago. Neither the Better Half nor I have enough hands and arms to simultaneously pull weeds and swat bugs. I'm starting to suspect that, subconsciously, part of the reason I'm attracted to fly-fishing and bird feeding is that trout, and many birds, eat bugs. Our populations of frogs and toads help out that way too. Wouldn't Minnesota Summers be more enjoyable if we had just enough insects to support trout, and birds, and bats and frogs and toads (sounds like a witches brew, doesn't it?) and not enough excess insect populations to harass us humans? I suppose this kind of thinking is enough to get me drummed out of the society of naturalists and ecologists. It certainly puts a dent in any perspective that more is better, doesn't it?

One of the emerging trends these days revolves around eating insects. Given my aversion to being bitten, you might think I'd be in favor of increased consumption of bugs. I am, but not directly. Just as I prefer my field corn to have been processed by an angus beef, I'd rather my edible insects first be processed by a wild turkey, a brook trout, or a ruffed grouse.

red admiral butterfly

Photo by J. Harrington

Lest there be any concern about it, I am all for growing wildflowers for pollinators, particularly butterflies and hummingbirds (see bird feeding above). I've yet to suffer an itchy or painful butterfly bite, they're pretty, and their flight is a delight. Bees help provide flowers I enjoy and food I eat and I've managed to avoid most bee stings thus far in my life. Unfortunately, the Better Half and I have had every wildflower garden we've planted so far fail after a single season. Sand plain soils and erratic rain patterns probably account for most of those failures. Last, but far from least, where have all the fireflies that I so loved disappeared to? The Better Half says I hit the sack to early to enjoy them. I say if they were there to be enjoyed, I'd be up later watching. If a firefly blinks in the evening, there's someone there to watch it, right?

Ecological Poem

By Brian Kim Stefans

Around the pool the hippos drool

as if the chloride wouldn’t kill them.

In fact, they like to play the fool,

the harbinger, the pilgrim.

The bird that plops into the glass

makes a sound, then isn’t there.

Spiders toss, in oleaginous mass,

Goo Gone into the air.

The ants that drag a beat-up car

onto the lawn are emissaries

of some forgotten prince or tsar

from an HBO miniseries.

The cheetah, panther, jaguar, and lynx

(some of these might be the same)

conjure images of Sphinx

and other trademarked names.

The dynamited hole now teems

with insects shiny and obscene,

crawling, dying, though it dreams

an ectoplasm of green.

My own two cats stiffen, confused

at this profusion past the door.

They bat at things they’ve often used

for sound therapy before.

I tell you this out of principle:

that spiraling around a theme

(while naming lots of animals)

can supercharge a meme.

My own skin founders in the rush

of allergenic, if cautious, beasts.

Eyes eye darkness, ears hear hush — 

the assassin’s humor feasts.

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