JUNE 3, 2019 – This past weekend at the cabin we entertained our three-and-a-half-year old granddaughter; or rather, she entertained us. It was her first visit of the season, and she had a blast—nature walks, rides in the kayak, watering the gardens, playing in the sandbox, picking wild flowers, throwing stones into the lake, drawing pictures, listening to stories.
Technically, our place is on the northwest shore of Grindstone Lake in northwest Wisconsin. What Illiana knows about its location is that it’s a long way from her home in the city. She also knows that when we get there, we’re it as far as people are concerned. Our cabin has all the modern conveniences, but once you step out the door, you’re literally surrounded by nature.
Illiana is comfortable in nature—we’ve made sure of that—but one hang-up she has is with the bugs.
I have to say, it’s one of my hang-ups too. Early in the season gnats hatch, then swarm so thick you can barely go outside without inhaling a meal’s worth. Then come the mosquitoes, which stay all summer long, accompanied by deer flies, dragonflies, regular flies, butterflies, and countless other kinds of bugs that fly . . . and gazillions of spiders spinning webs, catching the flying insects, and (on occasion) biting humans who are asleep.
But my biggest hang-up is reserved for the accursed—and often very tiny—deer tick, which carries the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi known as “Lyme disease.” I used to hate wood ticks, but that was before the appearance of the dreaded Lyme disease. Now, wood ticks are almost a relief. When I find one crawling on my leg or arm, I pick it off almost nonchalantly and fling it (to the winds, if I’m outside; into the sink or toilet inside), saying, “Whew! At least it wasn’t a deer tick!”
This weekend, however, I realized how conflicted we grownups are about bugs—and by extension, the environment. We told Illiana that bugs are part of the cabin experience, that being there isn’t much fun if you’re inordinately afraid of insects and spiders. So my wife and I downplayed them. “They’re food for the birdies,” we said. “No bugs, no birdies!”
“Bugs are good?” she asked, skeptically. “Bugs are good,” I said in the warm glow of the porch lamp one evening, as it drew a trillion insects to the other side of the screen. “Life on earth couldn’t exist without them.” I spared her my lecture on how we humans are destroying our precious earth.
But not a minute later, when a mosquito buzzed around my ear, I snapped, saying, “Gosh darn mosquito—kill it!” I flailed until—smack! I’d squished it . . . like a bug. “There! Got it, see?” I showed her a now two-dimensional mosquito.
“You killed it, Grandpa!” said Illiana, as if catching me in the act of murder.
So much for my “bugs are good” line. When it comes to saving the environment, talk is cheap.
© 2019 Eric Nilsson
