GALLINIPPER.....
What the heck is THAT? you ask....It's a giant mosquito that comes out in Florida and other areas of the country after heavy rains. They are about 20 times the size of regular mosquitoes of which there are FORTY species in Florida and when and if they land on you, YOU FEEL THEM! Their bite HURTS! They were given this nickname because they can nip a gallon of blood in a single bite---NOT!
Guess they are here every year after BIG rains, but not in the numbers that you see with regular mosquitoes, thank goodness! Only the female bites, and they are found more in fields and farm country than in the urban areas. The good news is they feed on the larvae of smaller species of mosquitoes and aren't all that interested in taking a bite out of you. Oh, and they are not known for transmitting any diseases harmful to humans. Thank goodness again!
There's quite the mosquito spraying program going on in several Sarasota counties. With the constant warm weather year around, there's spraying for ants and lots of other bugs as well. Guess that's why we aren't being inundated with large populations of mosquitoes like people are starting to see up north. We're hearing reports of black flies in the upper midwest and lots of ticks...ugh!
The late breaking news is a BIG storm passing through the midwest and the Ohio Valley tonight that's going to cause lots of severe wind damage. The storm could develop into a derecho...It's a VERY widespread, long lasting wind storm with HIGH winds of 60-70 m.p.h. Wind gusts can reach 80-100 m.p.h. A band of thunderstorms and showers accompanies the winds, of course. The damage it can cause sounds just like a tornado, only this storm doesn't have the cyclonic wind pattern. (Like the Dyson vacuum cleaner system).... Sparky had never heard of the word derecho, but now she knows! Here's the pattern of the storm.....
You know, it's just as well we are staying in Sarasota for awhile....Ticks and deer flies in Minnesota, bad heat in Houston and Nevada, black flies in Michigan, wildfires in Colorado, tornado scares in South and North Carolina, bad windstorms in our home state....We think we'll stay where we are for now!
Sparky just heard that there is a sand sculpting CAMP for kids down at Siesta Key Beach this summer. How cool is that? The camp has a master sand sculptor working with the kids. The five day workshop/camp costs 145.00 (!) for a child to participate in. Sparky just might just head down to the beach tomorrow to see what that is all about. It would be a great day to go anyway, as the water in the gulf is 85 degrees! We might even go for a swim! Or we might not.... Stay tuned......You never know what Eldo is going to do.....
I think its more like never know what Sparky is gonna do ! The sand sculpting sounds like fun.
ReplyDeleteLOL
DeleteMost of those storm predictions for the midwest sound pretty scary. I'd never heard of a Derecho before either.
ReplyDeleteI sure wouldn't want to be sitting outside with those monster mosquitoes flying around.
Hopefully those mosquitoes only come out at night. I got bite by something here in Wisconsin. They always bite me in my hair and I end up with itchy lumps.
ReplyDeleteMe, too!
DeleteOh great..more things for us to look forward to in November :)
ReplyDeletePretty scary bugs, but just having returned from Alaska where the mosquito is the unofficial state bird at over two inches in length, I am not too worried:(
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