Creepy crawlies come

In the spring, creepy crawly critters come out of hibernation, migrate and search for nesting sites.
That’s the nature oriented explanation when critters invade our homes. The immediate reaction resembles repulsion, rejection and destruction.
I realized that early on when a swarm of black flies invaded my brothers’ bedroom one hot summer day.
The cloud hummed and buzzed over their beds. My mother drenched the room with a can of insect spray, closed the door and sent my brothers to sleep elsewhere. Another dose the next morning and she had won back the room.
Many years later she lived in a log cabin my dad had built in the middle of the forest – a place surrounded with thousands of creepy crawlies. “Little House in the Big Woods” makes a great bed time story, but in real life it has its disadvantages. For instance, every small furry critter and insect for miles around my parent’s log cabin thought the humans held a perpetual banquet reception for them.
My mom quickly disillusioned them. She refused to share anything with any of them. She put everything in her collection of mouse resistant metal tins: matches, marshmallows, munchies and macaroni. When we visited, anything we casually left sitting around, she quickly snatched up and stuck it inside a tin with a tight lid.
Tins worked to keep out all the woods critters – except the black bear who strolled by one morning. Mom not only believed adamantly that critters did not belong in the Little House in the Big Woods, she also did not believe that the people of the Little House belonged inside any creature of the Big Woods. Mom checked the locks on the doors and windows and grabbed her camera.
Living in modern, tightly sealed homes, it is easy to forget that critters once dominated the land on which our homes sit – and that they will take it back the minute we let them.
Never let your guard down. They are always looking for new ways to invade. One morning as I walked past the picture window, I noticed what I thought was rice on the floor, until one or two moved. I shuddered and swept them up. A few more appeared the next day. The third day I entered the room with caution – in vain. They never returned.
Sometimes, it just happens that way.
But no one accepted that philosophical explanation the summer of the ant invasion. They insisted the honey jar provided the clarion call. I removed the honey as well as any other tempting morsel and scrubbed everything with bleach.
The ants returned. We sprayed and the migration detoured around our house – or I would have had to begin my own collection of tins.
This spring it was not ants or flies that came. This time it was “The year of the night crawlers.” It sounds like a great movie, but it’s a lousy reality when my loved ones up north stepped on a bunch of the brown wigglies instead of a door mat. Worse, this year there was a double invasion. The wigglers took over the outside, gray bits of fur skittered across the kitchen floor inside.
One mouse whispers of the wonder of Disney and Mickey Mouse. Dozens of them underfoot and it’s time for the Pied Piper. Since he wasn’t available, the family declared war on the home invaders. In one day alone, one conqueror liberated 10 mice from the burden of seeking for food, shelter and nesting material.
Everyone had their favorite method for liberating the mice and sweeping away the worms. The battle lasted for days – and then it was over. Otherwise, I would be out right now shopping for mouse resistant tins.


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