Getting the bugs out

Tis the season when the Asian Lady Beetles become a plague to all of us who live in or near soybean fields.  They can find ways to get inside most any older home, where they hide in cracks and crevices; a few come out every once in awhile when the house is warmed by sunshine or furnace.  These are not the cute little ladybugs I played with in my mother's garden.  If you scare them, they stink.  They will also bite.  They will get on your clothes and in your hair outside, and hitchhike into your house.

However, we are finally having genuine autumn weather, after getting almost two inches of rain Saturday.  Highs in the 50's and 60's, lows in the 30's and 40's.  I imagine when the sun shines brightly in the afternoon there will still be some of those bugs trying to get inside, but it won't be as bad as when it was 80 last week.

For a long time the story about how the Asian Lady Beetles arrived here was that they were introduced to the U.S. deliberately, to eat aphids that hurt soybean production.  Now it's thought that a lot of them probably traveled here with freight coming from Asia; this makes sense, because the little critters do like to get in tight places and hide.  I imagine both stories of their travels are correct.

Speaking of bugs, I took Blue the cat to visit the veterinarian yesterday.  He's had an ongoing ear-mite problem.  A long time back I stopped by and got some medicine from the animal doctor.  The instructions on the bottle said to put three drops in each ear twice a day, for three weeks.  I could never remember to keep it going for that long, so he'd get better for awhile, then eventually come back shaking his head and scratching his ears.  Our old Mama Kitty, who is totally an outside cat, has had trouble with mites for years; in fact, she doesn't want anyone even touching her head.  There's no way I could treat her anyhow, because she is a little wild.  I knew I could give her one treatment, but then I probably wouldn't be able to touch her for a long time.  And that's a problem because Blue sleeps with her at night, so he''d catch them from her again even if I got him free of them.

So I told the doctor my problem and received good news:  There is a solution for me, a one-time dose of stuff that works.  He treated Blue, and gave me the same thing to bring home and use on Mama Kitty.  She won't know what to think, with all those crawling little mites out of her head after so many years!  The vet showed me on a screen what it looks like inside Blue's ears, magnified many times.  It was like a hundred bugs crawling around like crazy!  Poor Blue, my ears started itching just watching that.  I also had him worm the cat.  He will always have some worms, the vet says, because he's outdoors so much and eats all manner of mice and moles; however, he said it would be good to just worm him once a year.  Mama Kitty has never been wormed in her life, but she seems fine without that.  I'm sure her teeth are bad, but that costs more than I intend to pay; and she still seems to enjoy her life and eat heartily.  

I guess I'll get my vacuum and get rid of some more of those Asian Lady Beetles that have sneaked into my house the past few days.

How much fun can one woman have?