It hasn't cooled down much in the house tonight, and the coming night will probably be worse. I must get that attic fan replaced. Also, the recent rain seems to have diminished the jasmine's ability to produce scent. I catch only the faintest whiff of it now and then. The season is being much too strange. While I have seen butterflies by day, the nocturnal lepidoptera are conspicuous by their near-absence. I can leave the back porch light on for hours and it will attract but one or two moths. Perhaps there is an overabundance of night birds eating them all.
I wish the birds would eat the earwigs. The little fork-tailed crawlers have begun their annual invasion, and I found four of them at once in the kitchen. I don't mind crickets in the house, as they tend to confine themselves to dark corners out of the way of my feet. I don't mind the crane flies, as long as they don't decide to flutter over my monitor and distract me. I don't even mind most spiders, as long as they don't crawl on me or drop unexpectedly from the ceiling. But even though they are (as far as I know) harmless, I really dislike earwigs. There's just something creepy about them, and they are not at all shy about crawling right over me, or even right over a piece of bread while I am buttering it. Yes, one of them did that. I flicked the interloper into the sink and washed it down the drain. No escort to the outdoors for those bugs!
