The garage door
opens accompanied by a blizzard of fluttering filthy creatures whose dust roils
in the shaft of morning sun worming its way through the miller-poop-covered
window pane.
I step back,
trying to avoid the brush of dust-laden wings as the millers fly past me through the open walk-in
door. Opening the overhead door has
awakened and alarmed them.
Yes, it’s miller
time again. I can recall past years when
the millers were this thick. One summer,
when the kingbirds reigned over the farm trees, I would walk through the trees
on my way to the garage. The kingbirds
hovered over me chirping and snapping their beaks and wings, scolding me as I
made my way to the garage. When I opened
the big garage door, the kingbirds would momentarily forget about me as they
pursued the millers exiting their hiding place in the garage door.
It got to where they
would follow me if I headed for the garage and wait expectantly in the branches
nearby for the miller flock. They even
learned voice command. I could say
something like, “OK kingbirds. I’m going
to open the garage door.” They would
gather near the west end of the garage and wait for their dietary treat.
Miller
infestations seem to come with dry years.
I can remember great circles of bare spots in wheat fields. Dad would say, “cutworm damage.” Some years the damage was so bad we would spray
the wheat for them, a product called Toxaphene.
It was nasty stuff. I had a
couple of gallons left over when it was declared illegal. Someone told me if I poured it down the holes
of the pocket gophers they would go away.
It didn’t
work. The EPA-banned substance is gone, but
the gophers linger on. The best
deterrent for them has been a couple of owls
who took up residence, and a badger. The
problem with the badger is like with a lot of hunters. They never clean up after themselves. But badger holes make a nice place to dispose
of wood ashes from the stove. So. . . .
Back to dry
years, and millers. There must be
something about wet soil that inhibits the cutworm hatch, for during wet
springs, the millers don’t seem so bad. I don’t see the circles in the wheat we used
to see, where the cutworms destroy wheat plants by consuming the roots as they
develop and turn into millers. But I
surely see millers.
I remember some years ago when the siblings
all attended an alumni banquet. As we
returned to the farm and turned on the lights in the house, the millers
gathered. Whenever anyone entered or
exited, more millers made their way into the house.
Finally, one of
the brothers went to the shop and brought back a trouble light and propped it a
foot or two above a large pan of soapy water sitting in the middle of the
kitchen table. We turned off all the
lights in the house and turned on the trouble light.
Soon, we were
all gathered around the kitchen table enjoying the Lilliputian kamikazes as
they circled madly and dived into the sudsy brine. There they would flutter a few seconds and
then float placidly. It was one of life’s
making-lemonade-when-life-hands-you-lemons moments. The simple pleasures of the poor.
So far this year,
we have resorted to swatting the buggers to death, but that method certainly
has drawbacks, the biggest one being the dirty filthy smudge on window, wall,
or light fixture that remains. I even
sprayed with a “safe” debugger sold by Wal-Mart. It killed the ones that I made
contact with, but it had no lasting effect.
The next morning, when I opened the storm door, out flocked the pests
from their roosts between storm door and door frame.
The issue soon
arose again. After the first really hot
night of the summer, I fetched the step ladder and set it in the doorway of the
upstairs bathroom. I summited its six
steps and contorted my way into the attic in order to open the attic vents in
the north and south walls. They are
shuttered most of the year to help retain a little heat during the cooler
months.
Nothing remarkable
happened when I opened the south shutter.
But when I opened the north shutter, a squadron of millers engulfed me
and set me on a sneezing fit. After the
dust cleared, I could see that the siding guys had done a poor job of ceiling
the north vent. No problem at all for a
miller to crawl into the gap, from thence into the attic proper.
They over-day in
the attic. Then when the bathroom
ceiling light comes on, they are attracted to it through gaps in the box that
houses light fixture, fan, and heating element.
From thence they invade the bathroom and soon scatter all over the house,
wherever lights are glowing.
I tried duct
tape as a temporary measure until I could set up a ladder outside and do the
job right. But I could see that a miller
could worm its way under the duct tape as easily as they can push up a threshold
strip on the bottom of a door, as they do in the garage.
For my third
trip up the ladder and through the hatchway, I carried a piece of fiberglass
screen and a stapler. I stapled the
screen to the inside of the sheeting, over the opening for the vent. I have a feeling that might not work much
better than the duct tape will.
In the meantime,
the pan of soapy water beckons. And I
long for the bossy kingbirds that could be annoying with their scolding, but
useful, too, with their appetite for millers.
If they would
come back, I would share a morning toast with them as I open the garage door: This miller’s for you.
