The Day I Felt My Skin Crawl

I love living in Spokane, but every fall a terribly unpleasant thing happens.  After the first frost, we are greeted by zillions of Blue Ash Aphids.  They swarm through the air and get stuck in our hair and teeth and on our clothes.  The only thing sort of cool about them is that they are a shiny blue color.  When you try to flick them away they leave their greenish brown spot of goo to remind you that they were there.  The worst part is that when you open your mouth to gasp at their hideousness, you usually eat one inadvertently.  Blech.

Once they are done swarming in the air, they seem find the nearest Ash tree and begin to collect there until they eventually die.  It is really disgusting.  You can scrape them off the trunk of the tree but there isn’t much you can do about the ones that gather around the base.  On the upside, there are not as many in the air sticking to you anymore, but the downside is that looking at it will make your skin crawl.  In fact, I am itchy now just from thinking about it.