Spraying for mosquitoes in Texas

Lots of things used to be considered "harmless" until they started harming you.

Shoe stores used to have X-ray machines to see how well your shoes fit. And the "cure" for teenage acne used to be sitting in front of an X-ray machine until your skin turned red.

Hell, cosmetics used to have radium in them "for that healthy glow!"

I wouldn't suggest buying them for your wife unless you don't like her then by all means....

Not just West Nile Virus here, but EEE Eastern Equine Encephalitis, both carried by mosquitoes. Both very bad, EEE probably more dangerous. I'm told horses are very susceptible to EEE and there is a vaccine for horses but not for people. We'll all go visit Freetown Fred and he can vaccinate us along with the horses.

It has been so dry here all July and part of August, I have seen almost no mosquitoes. My back yard is a band of lawn maybe 100 feet wide, and back of that about 10 acres of swamp a.k.a. wetland. You would think we would have black flies and mosquitoes by the millions, but we have very few. I think all the birds and other critters that the wetland supports probably eat the bugs and the bug eggs. Last two years, I don't know why (West Nile maybe?) the bird population seemed to be way down and the bug population was up. This year more birds, fewer bugs.

I'm still amazed that I have not seen one caterpillar tent this spring/summer. You are right--EEE is a given for the horses vaccination wise--that & a 3 way for rabies & what the hell ever

There was a blurb on TV about a couple cases of HANTA virus in Washington State. I think one guy died from it. Must have been a slow news day. I'm glad to see the bat population recover this year, i think they had some disease last year. They can eat a lot of bugs, hopefully stinkbugs too. A stinkbug must be like a whole turkey to a bat. I had a couple bats fly out from under the rake boards on the house I'm painting. I try to hang on tight to the ladder when I'm near those spaces under rake boards. Bats love those narrow spaces. Yellow jackets too. I tried to tell the deer-loving homeowner about Lyme disease, that worries me more than most hazards. That deer tick borne disease can give you flu-like symptoms for a few days, stay in you; then years later cripple you with arthritis.

I have an uncle who has been applying pesticides with an orchard sprayer every year for over forty years. No known effects as of yet. He raised 4 children all of which have two arms, two legs, ten toes, eight fingers and two thumbs. No known issues. This is just anecdotal evidence but he has probably been exposed to more pesticides and herbicides in his life than most of us. As long as I’m not drinking it I don’t worry about it. Now I have to go make my bath water and add a shot from my secret stash of Diazinon, it helps with the fleas.

I'm sorry but I will take my chances with the Mosquitos . Im sorry but I don't trust the government spraying the air that me and my family and friends breathe . Who knows what is in that stuff . What would happen if I drove down the road spraying chemicals out of the back of my truck ? I would be in jail . Only government can get away with this stuff .

Really good point mcb--

Heck, maybe I was lucky growing up when & where I did, the only thing flying around at night was the graphite & fumes from the steel mills, made for hardy ground bugs but skeeters would be weighed down. Trouble is where I live now more than makes up for it, had a 1 acre bug zapper I used to put out & in the mornings I would have to blow it clean with compressed air, I think it's cheaper to electrocute a human than all those bugs.

mason coal burner wrote:I'm sorry but I will take my chances with the Mosquitos . Im sorry but I don't trust the government spraying the air that me and my family and friends breathe . Who knows what is in that stuff .

Someone or more likely a group of people decided that the risk of spraying outweighs the risk of not spraying. Who knows if they made the right decision and how could you tell. When pesticides are applied correctly in the correct concentration they are effective and safe but they do not kill 100% of the targeted pest and they may not be 100% safe for everyone. I got a yellow jacket sting this week that could have been life threatening for some people. I take medicines at times that if you read the full information sheet from the pharmacy may have killed a person or two along the way. Bottom line is I don’t worry about the pesticides or the mosquitoes, worry causes stress, stress causes illness. You see it is a vicious cycle.

freetown fred wrote:I'm still amazed that I have not seen one caterpillar tent this spring/summer.

Now that you mention it, neither have I. First year in forever they have not been all through the lilac bushes.
Crows and jays are especially sensitive to West Nile Virus. We have had lots of crows this year, way more than usual, so I take that as a good sign. But I have seen almost no blue jays for a couple years.

titleist1 wrote:In the town I grew up we had the "Bug Man". He drove a small jeep-like truck though town that had sprayed a fog that was supposed to kill the mosquitoes.

We used to ride our bikes through the fog when he made the trip through our neighborhood. ... I guess that explains a lot!

We did the exact same thing! I used to follow the guy all the way around our road, and then up the next road. I remember enjoying the smell. I wasn't just riding thru the fog, but breathing it for a half hour straight being 10' away from the spray nozzles!

With all the yuppies that took over the old neighborhood, that would never fly today. I'd be on the front page of the paper ... and probably top story on MSNBC too!

I vaguely remember reading somewhere about the tent caterpillars. There is only one bird that likes the darned things and they follow the "blooms" as it were from year to year.

It takes them a year or two to catch up and that's the reason for sometimes seeing droves of caterpillars and a couple year later none.

This is one of the worst years ever for tent caterpillars in my area, don't know if it being so dry has anything to do with it the lake is now down over 4 feet & when there are 77 miles of shoreline that's an awful lot of water.