The Peskiest of all Pests

I have never been a fan of insects. The creepy crawliness of them just....eck....I am getting the chills just thinking about bugs and their many legs walking on me...ooooo!
However, to the gardener, many bugs are helpful little critters: spiders protect our plants by eating tons of other harmful bugs, ladybugs eat aphids, centipedes eat those slimy slugs, and there are many other examples of creepy bugs doing great things to keep our gardens looking wonderful. So that means my shivers need to be subsided temporarily and when I see (or feel!) an insect, I must turn and walk away, knowing that it will then go eat something else that is trying to eat my garden.
There is one such bug, however, that I cannot find any useful purpose for. One that has been known to carry diseases and if nothing else, packs a wallop of annoyance and unending itches.
That insect, my friends, is the mosquito. And boy did it show its face this season! In years past, we could wander around the E.S. Garden pretty much all day up until dusk hit. Then the mosquitoes would come out in full force and we either had to arm ourselves with bug spray, find some campfire-shelter nearby, or run inside and hide.
This year we saw a whole new side of that obnoxious buzzing creature. It did not matter what time of day you were outside - morning, night, whenever. You were instantly barraged with a wall of mosquitoes. Normally the mosquitoes don't bother me quite as bad as many people. This year they showed no mercy, no preference. They were out for any and all blood.
And that certainly squashed some of the garden-love I had for this year.

Ok, Ok...

I know, this doesn't look good for me. I can't even get past the first post! I promise once the weather gets above 25 during the day, I will be more motivated to do plant-type things and therefore more motivated to blog!
First I'll set the stage for you all. "You all" being, like, me at this point. Regardless! Here we go:


The players:

The reason for this blog:








And you can see many, many more pictures of the jungle after I get around to setting up a photo site.


Also playing a roll in this production number:






Me of course!
Yes, the short, sunburn-prone individual above will be providing the entertainment for this evening.
However, don't show up every night, this girl is a nursing student (with high hopes of being a midwife!) so between a full-time job and part-time school, shows will be infrequent and possibly quite bad.
Fair warning to you all. (yes, yes still just me)



Also included in my rabblings but currently I am too lazy to post pictures of because, damn it takes a while to edit each picture so it doesn't take up 5 feet of scrolling space are:

-The full-time, humugo garden I help take care of over in ol' East Schodack.
- My doodle-bop animal buddies that I share a home with. Alf, Lola and Floyd.
- The great BF who may or may not want his mug posted on my blog. That will be determined.

Eventually I will get a photo space set up so I can post the beautiful pictures there where my lazy self will not have to edit each one for perfect height and width proportions.
In the next month I'll start planting some seeds and will get ready to transplant all the houseplants that are dying in their too small pots.
Until then, all us Upstate NYers are ready for Spring! (Although it was comforting to have a real winter again...finally)