Bad bugs like roaches, ants & palmetto bugs get killed any way I can find to kill them. They are of no use to me & I need them gone.
There are also those annoying bugs that bring nothing to my quality of life. I’m talking about gnats. Annoying little buggers. You can be outside, beautiful breeze & never see one gnat … until you pour the contents of the low country boil on the table & yell for everyone to ‘COME & GET IT’. That’s when those aggravating things come by the millions. You have to bring out the fans, & have a cousin stand on each corner of the table fanning like crazy. You have to make sure you cover EVERYTHING once everyone has their plates full. And, as each person comes back to get refills, everyone has to take up position for the fanning ritual until all the food is gone or put up. If you don’t, you can’t tell what’s pepper and what isn’t ;~).
One of the other annoying insects we deal with is the mosquito. We have them at both houses. We work outside quite a bit at both houses & I have found what I believe to be decent solutions. I am not allergic, I just hate to get bitten by them.
I really don’t like to use sprays. I will if I have to but they burn, make my skin hot, etc. The organic ones that don’t do that, don’t work for me. So, last year, the husband bought me this Off fan thingy to hook on my belt or pants pocket. It has an insert and when the fan is turned on it gets blown out & about. I know that the stuff inside the insert isn’t good for me but frankly I wear it when I am moving around and it’s not like I am in a closed up room with a fog sprayer. Regardless, for those 30 – 40 minutes a day in the late afternoon when I am checking on the garden or planting or whatever, I rarely get bitten. And, when I do it’s usually only 1 or 2 around my ankles. Husband says it’s probably psychological but all I know is that I am bite free!
At the Country House we noticed these bat looking birds flying around and being really active in the early morning & late afternoons. After discussions & research we found out they are Purple Martins. I had heard many people talking about these wonderful mosquito eating birds & was happy they liked hanging around.
We knew they needed housing so we bought a cheap plastic house at the local Tractor Supply Store & installed it near the house. We were too late the first year, the Purple Martins never moved in. Some Robins did, & they were pretty to look at & ate spiders but didn’t eat mosquitos. We read that if another type of bird moved in the Purple Martins wouldn’t. Well, there was always next year. But, the next year the Robins moved in again. We noticed the Purple Martins hanging around & it looked like they had moved in to one or two of the rooms.
Even though this was a cheap model it has held up reasonably well.
Imagine our surprise this year when we got there for one of our weekend visits & the old bird house had what looked like about twenty pairs of Purple Martins flitting about! And, no Robins, they moved to the rafters in the well house. We thought the Martins looked a bit crowded so husband decided to give them a house upgrade. He ordered this:
I should have taken pictures of him putting it together. It came in a small 8x14x4 box & had a thousand pieces! And, it has 24 rooms! It took him around 45 minutes to put the 1st floor together but he got faster after that, about 15 – 20 minutes per floor.
Anyway, we took it with us on our next visit. We figured we were too late in getting it in because the Martins obviously had already nested in the older one. We decided to go ahead & put it up anyway. We put it down near the water & the dock & the garden. We put the extension pole in the ground & secured it with Sacrete(sp?). Once dry, we put the house up. It has hole covers & we covered all but the top layer just in case the Martins didn’t move in, we wouldn’t have other types of birds living there.
It was late in the day & once up & extended husband started walking back towards the house. I snapped this picture & started walking back as well.
As I took about 5 steps I looked up & saw the Martins frantically flying overhead. I turned around & there were about 6 or 8 checking the new house out! Less than 4 minutes had passed since it was up! We went back to the house & watched them until dark. From what we could see from the back porch, they didn’t actually enter any of the rooms but they would fly up and away very quickly. We figured they were trying to find out if any other birds lived there.
By the next morning, they had started moving in! Husband removed the next layer of hole covers so they could spread out even more.
They are migratory but we’ve read that they come back to the same place year after year. We hope they are there to stay.
5 comments:
Birds are great for getting rid of mosquitos and certain bugs. There also a great alarm system for security. You will know when people are on your property when you look for the birds.
Sandy, You are right about the alarm system. We had Kildeez(sp?) this year as well, boy are they protective and will let you know if anyone that they don't want around are around.
What the mosquitos will do to you is way worse than what ever the Off will do.
If things ever really fell apart, we in the Southeast would also have to think about the return of Yellow Fever. There is a vacine for Yellow Fever now, but it is generally only given to travellors, and you need a booster every 10 years.
Thank you Russell. I hate mosquitoes plus the pecky yellow 'deer' flies. The are only around for about 3 weeks but they bite the daylights out of me and the bumps they make stay on me for over 3 weeks. I use 'Off' a lot during that time.
Will check out the Yellow Fever vaccine.
Bugs definitely have no place in our lives, but they always make ways to get in and pester us. >.< We experienced it one time. Our backyard became a mating place for mosquitoes. Perhaps it was because of the open drainage that we had. So, we covered the drainage first and then installed an automatic misting system.
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