Yet They Keep Coming

 In the last week, my morning routine on the porch has evolved slightly to accommodate a curious development here in North Scottsdale. The extra-heavy monsoon we got this year in August resulted in, among other things, an explosion of the insect population. For the first time since we have lived here in the Phoenix area, we have been confronted by mosquitoes.

Ginger in particular, being a ginger, feels at the mercy of them, so we must keep our patio door shut. This also keeps out the wasps that seem to find their way onto our porch, and sometimes get too curious in exploring the interior of the apartment. The wasps too are novel visitors because of the rain.

The mosquitoes start coming after me about an hour before dawn and keep up their attack for the next three hours while I pray, meditate, and work from the rocking chair.

In order to fend them off, I have made it part of my evening routine to place a pair of socks, as well as a long sleeve button shirt, on the porch next to the chair. Evening still wearing my pajamas, I don the shirt and put on the socks as a defense against the mosquitoes. Nevertheless my hands are exposed and within an hour after dawn, usually my fingers are slightly swollen from the bites I have gotten without noticing.

Of course I could just buy some mosquito repellent. I think every morning I will do this, and yet I have let the days go by. Part of my things that surely the mosquitoes will go away any day now, and thus I will not need the repellent anymore. Yet they keep coming.

One good about the insect boom is that there has been a corresponding increase all the way up the food chain.  As many would point out to you, the Sonoran Desert is full of life, especially birds. 

Ginger was awakened in the middle of the night this week by loud hooting outside our window. She went to the kitchen to a great horned owl perched on the roof, silhouetted against the dark sky. I woke up shortly afterwards and went out to the porch and heard it hooting without seeing it.

The sound of an owl is very comforting. It's too bad they don't eat mosquitoes.