Wednesday, August 5, 2020

Post Storm Grass and Dragonfly Squadrons

Among the weirdness that has been 2020, I now have a squadron of Dragonflies.

Mind you, I rather like these creatures.  They have been around much longer than have been mankind. 

I am fairly certain why I have them here as well.   We do not treat the grass like most people do to keep the grubs away.

While many areas do this sort of thing, maintaining your lawn with pesticides in some strange recollection of a British Past, this is the tropics.  My little community is built upon a sandbar that was once a swamp and before that most likely a part of a beach.  I expect that within 100 years, it will be a beach again since we've managed to ruin the environment for "Profit!".

That this is the tropics means if you spray things on the ground, they soak quickly into the aquifer through all that sand that we pretend is our soil and you end up soaking your neighbor's pesticides onto your own grass when watering day happens, twice a month here in Broward county.

We have little signs on our yards stating that here there are poisons, stay off until dry.  You end up wondering if there really is anything there, or will your bare feet end up sprouting cloven hooves and glow in the dark as a result.

Not spraying my own yard allows these grubs to become whatever they were, in my case a squadron of dragonflies.

I also have quite a few white Snowy Egrets march across my front yard on a regular basis trying to find what they will for brunch.  They do so in their own entertaining herky-jerky motion, dipping their rapier like beaks into the sandy loam and moving onward like a drinking glass bird.

Don't break those, I've been told that the glass drinking glass birds are filled with a poisonous liquid.  Just a suggestion...

In the weirdness we have all had, we were just brushed by what was Tropical Storm Isaias (or however it is spelled and said).  It didn't create too much damage, here, and left regrowing into a category one hurricane by the time it made it to North Carolina.

Before it had even completely left South Florida, the dragonflies had begun to hatch.  They always come after a rain, and we had just had a week or so of daily soakers.

I welcome them, no matter how many we get.  The dragonflies eat the evil mosquitoes that have a nasty habit of finding me, personally, and dining on my ankles and legs.  That would be why I am always in long pants, preferably Jeans.  Never stand long in one place and always wear protective clothing.


We had so many dragonflies dive bombing the yard, that standing on the corner of my property you could hear their wings flapping in a soft clapping as they dodged through.  It wasn't quite a Locust Swarm event, but it was markedly more than I had ever seen. 

Stepping off of my porch for the evening dog walk, surprised, we left the property with Rack our Faithful McNab Dog.  Getting further down the block, there were fewer dragonflies and noticeably more mosquitoes.  You can thank me later.

Coming back I had grabbed this small section of a picture of my lawn.  A few leaves and there are three dragonflies in that small square.  One is looking right at you, just above the website address.

Finally getting back into the house, we were stopped.  There was one last dragonfly that wanted to come in with us.  It landed next to the door and tried to gain entry.  I did manage to change its mind by squirting it with the hose on gentle mist long enough for us to dart into the house.   It hovered at the door watching us like it belonged in our party.

Strange creatures sometimes appear when you least expect it.  Then they eat your mosquitoes and move on. 

We are seeing the numbers decrease in balance with the numbers of mosquitoes, but since it is in day nine of rain I don't think we will ever see the end of them.

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