Killing Spree

Spring has finally arrived in Northern Minnesota.  I think.  I bought flowers today anyway, and planted them and if we get anymore frost and it kills them all I will be peeved.  While I was outside just now planting away with all my little bird friends, I was swarmed with mosquitoes and gnats.  I took some time hunting them down (which wasn't hard because they were mostly in my nose and mouth) and killing them like a heartless mercenary which involved slapping myself about a million times a little harder than was probably necessary.  But I feel like it's worth it, especially this time of year because every mosquito I kill now can't go on to have a billion babies throughout the summer so it's like I'm making Duluth a more habitable place for humans.

I used to have a crippling fear of bugs, especially spiders and beetles, and a few years ago I had to make a conscious decision not to let them bother me so much or else I would go crazy and would never sleep again after waking up one time and seeing a wood tick crawling on my arm.  I desensitized myself by picking wood ticks off my dog with my bare fingers and making myself hold them slightly longer than absolutely necessary.  It worked!  I can sleep now even if I don't check my entire body for ticks before bed.  (Actually, I still do that, but if I forgot one night, I could still sleep)  I think I might need some more desensitizing therapy though, because I found a tick on the dog the yesterday and between picking it off of her and the three steps it would have taken me to throw it in the fire, I involuntarily spazzed out and threw it and I don't even know where it went.  I have worked to long and too hard to not be a spaz to have a setback now!

A bird hit my window while I was writing the last paragraph so I went outside to see if it was still there.  It was.  It was a robin and it was stunned so I held it while it recuperated, and it pooped on me FIVE times in about ten minutes.  Now I'm back by the window and I see a huge stain of poop right where it hit.  Who knew that birds got the trots?  Apparently they do.  Really.  I just looked it up on Google and if you notice a bird has diarrhea, you should feed it pound cake.

Okay, I'm going to go back outside now to plant more flowers, kill more mosquitoes, and look for more birds with diarrhea.