Miller Time

     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.