mosquitoes

I am absolutely covered with mosquito bites. They are flying in through open windows in the bedroom and attacking me when I sleep. A couple of times I've been awakened by their buzzing in my ear. I killed two. I also managed to shoo one outside that I found in the bathroom.

Outside in the garden, I discovered that our fountain was infested with mosquito larvae. I had thought that they wouldn't breed in running water so I had been making a point of running the fountain regularly, but there they were. They look like segmented worms, somewhat translucent, less than a half an inch long. And they move randomly through the water by bending in half and then snapping their bodies open again.

Killing an adult mosquito in my bedroom is not too difficult. But killing a fountain full of mosquito larvae was tougher for me. They were so helpless and vulnerable. And at that stage of their life hadn't done anything to bother me. But I killed them anyway. My first thought was that there was probably some chemical I could put in the water, but that felt too cruel. Instead I created a siphon with a short length of garden hose and emptied out the water pouring it onto the lawn and the snapdragons I had planted beside the fountain. I said a prayer as I sucked them up, and felt good that their bodies would feed the flowers at least. When the fountain was emptied I left it to dry in the sun.