Bugtime
It’s summer, and once again the annual Insect Parade is in full swing. It’s a bit more subdued than last year, probably due to the unusual lack of rains, but still it’s something to see. There was the rash of scorpions of May to greet the warming weather, followed by a motley succession of life forms which would last from a few days to a week and then disappear as suddenly as they had come, making way for the next wave. July brought centipedes, who are so fond of dropping unexpectedly from the ceiling. The last six weeks or so we’ve had small, dark moths which flutter out from our clothes and towels, and which I fervently hope are not the fabric-eating kind. Some local friends just advised us that a recent arrival, a mid-sized creature with wings, has a nasty bite which, if scratched, oozes a caustic fluid onto the skin.
Notable mostly by their absence this year are the ants, whose movements seem to be related to the rain. Last year, when it rained every afternoon, the ants would soon follow, marching in great columns across the tile floors, up and down the high walls, to our kitchen. They were thoughtful in usually arriving after dinnertime, which allowed me to ignore them.
We take a pretty laissez-faire approach to bugs here — after all, we live next to a milpa. I dislike using poisons around the house, and I hate killing things. And anyway they’ve got us way outnumbered. The bugs mostly go their way and we go ours — peaceful coexistence, you might say.
Well, there are a few exceptions. I’ve stomped on a scorpion or two, a purely reflex reaction. Lala the Fearless Killer Tabby is fond of scorpions — for lunch. I worry she might get bitten but she hasn’t so far. She also hunts centipedes, as does the Mexigringo. Spiders suspected of being black widows are eliminated rather heartlessly. And when the cutter ants show up to ravage the garden, the Mexigringo brings out the big guns, a lethal powder from the hardware store. In August and September, when the flies arrive and somehow get past our screens, we both pursue them with rolled-up newspapers, while the bored tabby looks on.
Lala the Fearless Killer Tabby
But otherwise, it’s live and let live. The ants are welcome to the kitchen when I’m not using it. The myriad flying beasties mostly hover around the lights, twelve feet up, although they’ve been so thick lately they will crash land into cooking pots, so I’ve taken to keeping things covered. We look carefully when reaching into any basket — scorpions adore baskets. The Mexigringo got stung last summer when going for his keys. A quick internet search revealed this unlikely to be fatal to an adult and recommended icing. Now we look first.
The most unwelcome bugs are the ones that get into the food. O the dismay of finding that disgusting spiderwebby stuff in a box of cornmeal you’ve been hoarding for months! According to my research (whatever would I do without the internet??), those bugs are there in the meal all along — it’s just that they hatch in warm, humid conditions. This can supposedly be prevented by freezing the product for a day or two, which kills off the larvae, so I’ve started doing this with everything in sight — flour, masa harina, chile powder, rice.
Unfortunately I only noticed the rice was harboring uninvited guests weeks after buying a six-pack of 1-lb. bags at one of those big stores. Freezing doesn’t seem to have fazed the rice critters, or maybe I got there too late. In any case, it’s a real pain getting them out. I’ve been picking over the dry rice on a plate, then rinsing it in a strainer, then putting it in a bowl of water, whereupon, encouraged with a little judicious stirring, the little buggers will float towards the top and can be scooped off with a spoon. Unfortunately the starch in the rice quickly impairs visibility, making frequent changes of water necessary. It’s kind of distasteful but what else to do? I’m not going to throw away five bags of rice. The good news is that here in Mexico, for once in my life I have time: luxurious, blessed, beautiful time, to de-critter the rice, to observe the ways of the ants, to smell the flowers as they say. I consider myself supremely fortunate in this. And if a worm or two evades my search, well hey, it’s free protein. Or as the old Spanish saying goes, lo que no mata, engorda (what doesn’t kill you, nourishes you).