Mossy Paths and the Wiggletail Search

  I try not to complain because I like rain.  I really do.  I like the way the earth smells fresh and clean after a thunderstorm.  I like the thunder, the lightning and winds.  Stormy weather stirs me to the bone but occasionally, one has to say "Enough is enough!"  Our persimmon seed weather forecasting predicted a wetter than usual winter and, so far, the seeds have been correct.  We have had so much rain that things are getting a tad soggy about the Bayou.  Living high on a hillside, rain waters do not present a flooding problem but due to the constant moisture (from rains and pea-soup thick fog), nothing is drying.  If this keeps up, we will all have to be extra diligent in emptying any standing water.  Mosquito larvae will have a happy time but, I guarantee, the rest of us will not.  With the warmer weather, this thought occurred to me, today.  I need to start checking flower pots and birdbaths for those little wiggletails!

    Wiggletails!  Now, there is a fine name for you.  Wiggletails are what we grew up calling mosquito larvae.  The tiny wiggly things that can be found in any bucket of water seemingly moments after a rainstorm!  It never ceases to amaze me just how quickly mosquito eggs hatch into those weird looking larvae that so violently kick about in standing water.  Let any wee puddle sit more than a day and suddenly it was filled with the larvae.  The tiny, almost worm-looking larvae move about the water with a tail-jerking action..hence the name wiggletails.  Pop told us to make sure we emptied any buckets so the wiggletails did not "hatch" into mosquitoes.   The name stuck as did the idea behind the emptying.

  But the rains have not only supplied us with potential mosquito nurseries, it also has made trekking about the hillside a tad treacherous.  The board paths have become covered with molds and mosses that are as slippery as a greased pig.  Several times in the past few weeks, I have come close to sliding down the hillside on my rump!  The board paths are to be avoided until drier weather!  I can remember my grandmother going out with a bucket of bleach water and a scrub brush to swab down her front steps.  At the time, I thought that she did not like the way the molds and mosses made her steps green.  (Personally, I thought it was a lovely shade of green and was almost perturbed to see her scraping away at the moss!)  Now, I think she probably had a great idea.  Still, being the lackadaisical person I am, I shall wait until the weather dries and the mold and moss disappears on its own.  In the meantime, I shall take a different path and hunt for wiggletails.