With the “bug” season here upon us and with the onslaught of rain we have had lately, I am already thinking about my “bug” battle plan!  Honestly, if it were just me outside in the yard it wouldn’t worry me because in general, like most adults, I know where the “mine fields” are and where the mosquitoes hang out so I can avoid them.  But when you have Grandkids, the friends of Grandkids, the Grandnieces and nephews running around, rolling around, climbing trees up and down and in general playing hard I feel like I need to be on the offensive because they just don’t think about bugs.  Or at least not until they bite!

When I was a kid battling bugs was actually something we did for fun!  I remember battling ants by blowing up the mounds with Black Cat firecrackers and trying to fry them with a magnifying glass.  I also remember rolling up newspapers with my Grandmother and burning the webs that webworms had made in her pecan and fruit trees. Flushing out enemies with a water hose was always fun too.  I think my favorite bug battling memory though took place out at the farm.  Oscar, who worked for my Grandfather and who lived at the farm would make “Mosquito Smoke”.  The recipe for making “Mosquito Smoke” if you’ve never heard of it is pretty simple.  You start with a few metal containers.  Oscar used large old Coffee cans or metal 5 gallon buckets.  Then we would go on the hunt for the secret ingredient.  We would go out in the pasture and look for the perfect…“cow pattie” or AKA cow poop.  Before you turn your nose up or start to hold it you must know we were not concerned with the fresh patties but instead we were searching for the nearly dried pattie.  In our defense, since cows are herbivores, what goes in as grass and plants comes out, basically, as grass and plants if that makes you feel any better.  Next, we would put the patties in the cans and place them slightly up wind on the perimeter of where we were working then light them on fire.  Because of the balanced consistency of matter and moisture the air would be filled with smoke, specifically “Mosquito Smoke”.  For those of you wondering…. it did not smell much more than a normal smoke smell.  Now I am probably not going to light up the “Mosquito Smoke” for the next gathering I have at my house but for nostalgia’s sake I think I will add it to my arsenal for the bug battle this season!  If anyone is brave enough to try it let me know what you think and for those of you horse lovers out there horse and donkey dung works well too!!

Happy Bug Season!