Category: October 2021

Of all the issues we expected to arise with Tucson, mosquitoes was not one we had anticipated. It’s the desert. No water, no mosquitoes, right? Sure there’s a little issue with monsoon rains during July and August, but Albuquerque has monsoons too, without the mosquitoes.

So why does Tucson have tons of mosquitoes but Albuquerque doesn’t? Turns out Tucson gets tiger mosquitoes (so named because they are striped). These are warm-climate mosquitoes and apparently Albuquerque is a bit too far north and too high in elevation for them.

Tiger mosquitoes don’t need much water. The large northern mosquitoes that I’m used to breed in water, such as in wetlands and ponds. These little Tiger mosquitoes in Tucson breed on the very edges of tiny bits of water, such as under a flower pot or in indentations in tree bark. Their larvae can remain dormant but alive for literally years with no water at all. Then when there finally is a bit water, they suddenly come alive!

They are more aggressive than northern mosquitoes and are more likely to follow you into your car and your house. They’re also small, very fast, and nearly silent. They are also active all through the middle of the day, and not just in the early mornings and evenings. These little stealth mosquitoes are truly out to get you. And they carry all kinds of diseases.

I think I’ve already bored you with my complaints about this year’s unusually wet monsoon and the subsequent mosquitoes in an earlier post. The more pertinent question is – can anything be done?

I’ve been in a major learning curve trying to figure out how to deal with these mosquitoes. The key for control is to make sure you don’t have any standing water. Not even a tiny amount for a short period of time. Uhhh – how?

Standing water, saturated outdoor rugs:

Heavy rains:

Gutters draining into the wrong places:

Standing water in the alley:

Not to mention – everyone has a pool! These little mosquitoes don’t lay eggs in the middle of the pool. They would deposit them around the edge, under the overhang, in the trap, or near the filter and pump – small hidden areas that are occasionally damp.

I cannot keep my entire property completely dry during monsoon season.

I started buying things to combat mosquitoes. I started with lotions and potions. This one smells good, but doesn’t work:

This one is useful when backpacking because it is small and doesn’t leak. But it’s greasy, smells horrible, dissolves clothing and plastic, and is not something I want on me on a regular basis.

I cannot figure out how to spray myself with these things without gagging, and dripping it everywhere and spraying everything except for myself. Plus, it doesn’t even seem to help much. Plus, everything I just said about deet.

This is a newer formula which is supposed to be better than deet, and does help some, but I’m still being dive bombed.

Some of my friends spray their vegetation and did buy a can of that. I used it to try and get the mosquitoes out of my laundry room, but I didn’t want to spray it on all my vegetation because I’m afraid of killing bees.

I know it’s possible to get a pest company to come and fog the yard. But again, I don’t want to kill bees. And the pest company told me they would only get about 50% of the mosquitos anyway. There’s hundreds of these dang things, so I’m not sure how useful that will be. But I’m thinking next year, to hell with the bees.

Next we tried zappers.

These zappers reviewed well, but it ended up making everything worse. First of all, it was gross. It made horrible zapping, killing-insect noises. Exceedingly unsettling.

It also attracted bugs to my patio!

My patio became insect safari!

Bugs of all sorts!

This video is like something out of a horror movie (one of those B-rate, so ridiculous it’s funny ones, especially if you watch it all the way to the middle where I get attacked). And just so you get the mood right, this is bedtime, and I’m home alone, in my pajamas, and I’ve gotten out of bed to investigate strange and scary noises coming from my patio.

It was Halloween at my house a month early.

So now what? We set a couple of passive mosquito traps out, but they only trap mosquitoes who have already bitten you and are looking for somewhere to lay eggs.

Finally we decided to buy the mother of all mosquito traps – a huge, expensive thing that requires a CO2 canister, that attracts and then traps the mosquitoes.

First issue – where to put it? We’re supposed to put it in a low, shaded spot. It’s Tucson – we don’t have any shaded spots. We also have a puppy so we don’t have any safe low spots. We finally set it up behind a patio chair next to the BBQ grill. Sooo, who’s going to sit in that chair now? It WAS my favorite chair. Now I’m not going to go near it. Obviously we’re going to have to find a better spot for the thing.

Second issue – now we have to drive all the way across town to refill our CO2 every couple of weeks.

Third issue – we are attracting mosquitoes! So no, we do not have the mosquito issue figured out yet.

By the end of September I was so dang frustrated with the mosquito situation that I went online and reserved an airbnb in Seattle for all of August 2022. An entire month! It’s a cute little, dog friendly, relatively affordable guest house, just a few blocks from the Puget Sound.

Kayaking here we come! And excellent seafood, and all the amenities of Seattle, in the only warm and dry month of the year up in Washington. I’m soooo, looking forward to it.

Just a modest little place, but very Seattle.

So August 2022 is handled. What about September? We could go anywhere in September – it’s one of the best months in most of the US (except Tucson). Maybe I’ll spend September 2022 in Boston with my sister. She doesn’t know that yet. Well, now she does 😉

To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com

Finally, here are the promised puppy pictures!

Some of you have noticed that I haven’t posted any blog posts for awhile. My intention, as soon as I finished posting the wonderful pictures Laura sent from Spain, was to post puppy pictures. I have lots of adorable, happy, funny puppy pictures and videos for your entertainment! All I needed to do was to get them uploaded.

Then life happened. It’s been an extremely challenging last few weeks, and I’ll tell you about that soon. But meanwhile, let’s reel the story back to early September, before life got a bit more difficult.

We have a pool in Tucson, and we decided to introduce Biska to the water right away. Part of her puppy training is to make sure she knows how to swim and get herself out of the water on her own.

Turns out she doesn’t like water! Well, baby steps. We got her a little pool too.

Trying again:

Ok, enough getting used to the water. He she is, 3 weeks later. Time to go swimming! In this video I’m teaching Biska to head toward the steps to get out.

Here’s some cute pictures:

Playing in the backyard:

Here she is, learning to ring bells at the door to be let outside to go potty. Typically (when not videoing), I would come running and open the door each time she played with the bells. Biska quickly learned that ringing the bells would make me come running. Oh, the power of the bells!

Every time she rang the bells, I’d come and take her outside. Then if she pottied, she’d get a treat. She had the system figured out in no time! And boy did she milk that for all it was worth. When she first figured it out, it seemed like I was letting her out to potty every 5 minutes!

For several exhausting days Biska rang those bells every time I left the room. She was going through a brief period of separation anxiety. Luckily I was able to work with her with that, and she’s ok being left alone now. Separation anxiety can be quite serious if it persists in older dogs, but for her it was a brief stage that we were able to get past.

She will still whine a bit when I leave her, but she won’t panic.

Biska’s a smart dog and it’s a challenge to keep her from getting bored. I bought some fun puppy puzzles. She has to move levers or flip things open to get to the food hidden inside.

Like most puppies, she is full of energy. When I first got her she seemed unusually calm, but I think she was just very young. The rescue group put Biska’s birthdate as July 12, but I think they got her mixed up with her mom’s sister’s litter. They rescued two pregnant poodles who had their pups a week apart. I know Biska is from the second litter, and I’m pretty sure she was actually born July 19. So she was fairly young when I first got her.

I don’t think I ever posted her advertisement picture. Here it is – now you can see why I couldn’t resist! I’m not sure when this picture was taken – I’m guessing approximate age of 6 weeks.

Here she is on September 25 acting like you would expect from a puppy 😉

Occasionally she comes to a screeching halt – naptime!

Sitting for pictures! Biska’s doing a great job at learning “sit”, although she still thinks the best way to get someone’s attention is to jump on them first and then sit. Before I can even open my mouth to say “down”, she’s already sitting. How do I train her out of that?

During September Biska was still officially being “fostered” by us, because they wouldn’t let us adopt her until she was old enough to be spayed. It’s best to spay a dog at several months old, but the rescue places push it as early as possible in order to get the pups spayed before releasing them for adoption. I would have been willing to foster her longer in order to delay the spay until she was a bit bigger, but the rescue group was not flexible. Her spay appointment was scheduled for October 4, supposedly at age 12 weeks, but likely only 11 weeks.

Although I was reluctant to have her spayed so young, we’ve been really looking forward to getting the adoption process over with!

To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com