Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Arizona Wildlife

There are a large number of insect eating creatures in Arivaca. The ranch right now has hundreds of little baby toads hopping around. There are lots of big fat geckos, skinks and othe lizards, some measuring up two feet in length. Recently, I have even started to see a number of large spiders. Yet, despite all these predators we are still overrun with bugs. All kinds of horrible insects abound. There are enough moths here to eat every wool product produced in America. We have flys, crickets, wasps, beatles (some several inches long) and lots of things I cannot identify. Eating dinner has become a challenge. You need one hand to bat away the miniture kamikazes. It seems that no matter how many insects the lizards, toads and spiders eat it barely reduces the swarms of pests. Tonight at dinner there was a spider so full that it could not even move and the insects danced over it without fear.

2 comments:

Chris Conway said...

I truly don't know how you manage to keep your sanity with all those bugs, and how you tolerate the heat. It sounds dreadful. I have some major bug phobias, particularly re: scorpions, of which I believe there are many in Arizona.

J. Otto Pohl said...

The bugs are annoying. It is amazing how many there are. About a dozen drowned themselves in my water glass tonight at dinner. I suppose you get used to them. I have not seen any scorpions yet. The heat I don't mind. We often get cooling breezes. It also cools off at night.