May 24, 2021
The onset of our summer rains kick-starts the natural cycle. Oddly, the mosquitoes in Amatlan started coming out weeks ago, before the first thunderstorm provided any water for breeding them, but now they have company.
In most years, large white butterflies show up, with seven-inch wingspans, a few weeks before the rains themselves. But since the rains themselves arrived early this year, the butterflies were behind schedule, and I only saw my first one last week.
The moyotes (June bugs, also called by the variant name mayotes in the local Nahuatl language) arrive next. I read that in some places these flying beetles are diurnal, but here, they show up at night, and love to come into the house. Why? I have no idea, since they don’t go for any food that’s around, nor do they spend excessive amounts of time flying into light-bulbs. Some of my friends and I call them ‘stupid bugs’ because they essentially come in to blunder into walls, then end up on the floor trying to get off their backs. In the morning, I sometimes start the day by fetching a broom and sweeping a half-dozen out onto the patio.
So far, the flying ants, which arrive in droves, also at night, and promptly shed their wings, are not in evidence. They do no damage (that I can see), but droves of any bug are annoying. Laura, who comes once a week to clean my house, tells me that cooked and ground up, they are delicious in sauces. I admit I’m willing to just take her word on that. But then, while people here treat chapulines (fried grasshoppers) as a delicacy, I’ve never wanted to venture into that experience, either.
I did learn some years ago to live with a certain population of bugs, and they don’t faze me the way a couple of silverfish might have if I’d found them in my old apartment in Toronto. You move into a property at the edge of a Mexican nature reserve, and you get … nature. Several spiders have taken up residence in corners of my large kitchen, and I leave them to catch as many of the flying insects as they can. They also help deter more aggressive insects.
What is actually more of a problem for me is the amount of vegetation that proliferates when the rains get going. The area the dogs use to relieve themselves is easy to clean right now, but in two weeks, I’ll need to take a machete to the plants that crop up. Similarly, there is a large corral for the dogs to hang out in, that gets choked quite easily. I left it too late to attack that last year, and half of it became simply impenetrable until November when the die-off was under way.
The one surge of new life that is truly appealing this year is the litter of puppies to which Xilonen (Shee-LOH-nen), the dog next door, gave birth a couple of weeks ago. They remained invisible until this week, but now I see groups of them – there are eight in total – romping in my neighbour’s large yard. Naturally, every time I’ve been down with some kind of camera, they decide they all need a nap, and disappear completely.
So, defeated in that effort this evening, I simply took a couple of shots of my other neighbour’s fluff-ball, Canelita, who was happy to pose for her close-up. She’s certainly more photogenic than the moyotes. And she’s actually no larger than any of the pups. So, imagine her multiplied by eight, and without the fluff, and you’re close to the look of the pack.
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