I had been feeling pretty good about the weather this summer. Yes, we can really use some rain, but the lack of moisture seems like a good thing in other ways.
I haven’t seen a lot of slugs hanging out in the garden. And I also hadn’t seen a lot of earwigs. In fact, we hadn’t even bothered getting out the traps this year.
Then I moved a potted plant that was sitting outside. They were scrambling for cover everywhere.
I really don’t like earwigs. They’ve never hurt me. They’ve never attacked me. But there’s something about those big rear pincers that just makes me shiver.
They like dark, damp places. The kind of places I don’t generally hang out myself, and in dryer weather, you tend not to see quite as many. Even one of my least favourite places, around the rim of the compost bin, they seem to like.
We have a few traps. Blocks of wood with channels cut into them. The earwigs crawl inside, can’t turn around, and you can just gather them up each morning and dump them into a bucket of water with a little soap. The don’t seem to like soapy water. Not big fans of hygiene, I guess. I have even, on some years when they have been rather plentiful, mixed up a bit of water and soap and sprayed around the outside of the house. It does seem to keep them away.
In spite of they’re nasty appearance, they really aren’t harmful. Although they sure look like the would be. And in spite of the name, they don’t go looking for ears to crawl into and start munching on brains. Although for some people that might be an improvement.
But there is one thing I have only seen once and never want to see again. Flying earwigs. Not just one or two. Clouds of them.
You can’t tell by looking at them, but the do have wings. They rarely use them, but they can.
Several years ago, I was sitting by a lake, soaking up some rays, reading a book. You know, you’re regular type of summer activity. I looked across the lake and noticed a kind of grey coloured cloud moving across the water.
It’s not unusual. A few times a year you have an ant day. You know, those days when the big carpenter ants decide they need to relocate and all start flying, looking for new places to eat. But this wasn’t ants. It was earwigs.
I wasn’t long getting myself indoors, making sure there were at least screens between me and them. Flying hordes of earwigs is the stuff of horror movies.
I’ve only seen it once, and I really don’t want to see it again.
But thankfully, there don’t seem to be a lot of them around this year. Although there are always a few hanging out somewhere.
