The Bug Chain. Pt. 1

Bugs.  What on earth is it with my pairing locations with their bugs?!?!  As I sit here, in the Pacific, thinking back on all our past assignments, one of the major things that forms a chain between each is bugs.  Every single place that I have lived or spent any amount of time in my life is always marked with very graphic memories of their insects.  I seriously wish that I had known this pattern would be there when this journey started.  You had better believe that I would have taken pictures...and LOTS of them!  No, I am not going to ruin the mystery and talk about the bugs for each location in this one post...that would spoil the fun.  Instead, I am going give you Part 1 of The Bug Chain.

Since the Great White North had such harsh weather with temperatures that spent most of their time down in the negatives, their insects had to be resilient little freaks.  It wasn't as if they could escape to a nice warm fire during the winter months like the rest of us.  The big thing, bug wise, that I noticed our very first winter was the lack of flies.  They were no where to be seen.  Seriously, I thought I had lucked out!  I had never thought there could be a location that didn't have flies.  But my glee would be short lived when the ultimate thaw in May took place.

With the disappearance of snow came the emergence of the Great White North's mascot bug: The Mosquito.  Oh my, did it emerge with a vengeance!  The first hint of a problem came when I started noticing these faint gray clouds that started forming over grassy areas.  Up close, because these were the first hatchlings after a long winter, they were puny, tiny, weak looking little guys.  But there were a lot of them!  Unless I wanted to dowse myself with bug repellant, my daily walks became quite an adventure.

On base, there were areas that were worse than others.  I learned quickly to avoid walking near parks, ball fields, or long expanses of grass.  These places were absolutely infested with them.  One step on the grass would raise an army of mosquitos into on defending their turf to the death.  Now, in hindsight, I think it is quite hilarious.  We had our own proverbial minefield, right there, in the Great White North.  Let me just say that mowing the lawn resulted in an explosion of mosquitos on nightmarish proportions.

As I mentioned earlier, the first round of mosquitoes were very small in size.  With horror and a morbid fascination, we would actually see the following generations get bigger and bigger, ending with the largest mosquitos we had ever seen.  I remember how I would get a closer look at them as they rested on the window screens.  By late summer, when the Great White North was preparing for its long winter, the mosquitos were so great in size that I could see that they were actually brown with what reminded me of tiger striped designs.  By the end of summer, I felt that those little blood suckers were appropriately designed.  Predators indeed!

Just as the military went to war against the Dak-Rats, they also launched a campaign against the mosquitoes.  West Nile was the major headline in the news at that time, and our leaders took every measure they could think of to eradicate their foe.  Our version of the ice cream truck would slowly drive through our neighborhoods spraying bug killer, causing all the mothers to quickly usher their children inside...and rushing to close all the windows and doors. Luckily, they timed these "drive bys" to happen at sunset, when children were supposed to be indoors anyway.  But woe to anyone who had a BBQ going on.  "A little bug killer with your steak???  Don't mind if I do!"  It was just part of the summertime fun.

By the end of summer, I discovered the reason for our very healthy population of blood suckers.  Like many military bases, the Great White North was built on unwanted land in the middle of a swamp. While the military had converted the area to a small town, all the bones of being a swamp still remained: unpredictable soil make up that resulted in construction issues, beautiful birds, frogs, soggy ground, and last...but not least...mosquitos.  After that first assignment, the first thing I would ask about a new location would be whether the base was built on a swamp and what kind of bugs did they have.  I can't imagine what our sponsors may have thought of me.  But after the dealing with the Great White North's Bug Mascot, I feel that it is a very legitimate concern.