Sledgstone

Also our summers are full of thunderstorms. It will rain and storm probably once a day for a few hours every day in august. The wind would eventually blow that post down, if not then a big ass fire ant mound would form at the base of that and they'd all crawl into your house and get everywhere. Its termite swarm season right now at night termites are everywhere, and their wings are all over the place. The other day at work I was out back and a little dust devil of termite wings was going across the pavement. There are so many bugs here, if a window unit wasn't sealed up it would be an invitation for all kinds of crawly things to come in... and then the spiders follow them in. Outside of the black widow and brown recluse, most of them are pretty harmless to humans. There was one that made a web off my toilet brush last week, I just kinda left him there because he had a few termites in his web. Even though the house is protected from damage, right now if you open your door for even a second you'll get some flying in. The house gets sprayed every 6 months to keep any infestation happening, but they're ineffective against ants and spiders. Right after the house gets sprayed, the next week the front porch will be a beetle graveyard. I'm not sure if it attracts them or what because I never see that many any other time. As the pesticide washes away, I generally get a few toads, frogs, and geckos that'll hang out by my front door and take the job with an endless buffet. The geckos are skittish and run away when I come in or out, but the frogs DGAF, they're pretty use to me and know I won't bother them.

This was made a few days ago in my city, so its super current. The background noise is every night, just millions of bugs singing for probably a good 8-9 months out of the year. We only get about 3-4 months of mild to cold temperatures.  The cicadas are suppose to come out this year too so it will be twice as bad.

Lmao! that's crazy. Screw all those bugs. The only pesticides I have to use is some terro liquid ant baits a couple times a year to kill little black ants and carpenter ants. I've seen fire ants before but they're not an issue here. We'll get mosquitoes and stink bugs all summer. Black flies that bite like bastards and go for the eyes but they only last for the month of March. June bugs around June and random spiders but mostly daddy long legs that will eat little gnats. Theres a variety of spiders but they mostly stay outside. Brown recluse can be bad. I'd say the worst insect issue we have are ticks. I get bitten by one at least 2-6 times a year. Fuck those things and their lyme disease. I'm glad we have opossums around here because they eat a shit ton of them.

Winter here kills almost all the bugs and keeps their populations in check. I complain about winter often, but it is a solid 8 months of no mosquitoes.

That would have to be some wicked wind to be able to knock this post over. I used structural screws in this thing. And 70+ pounds of rocks at the base. The wind would have to be way strong to knock this thing over.

Thankfully we don't get many strong storms here often. It'll happen a couple times a year tho with 70 mph gusts. I lost a nice glass table once when the wind lifted it right up and shattered it on a chair. It looked like the snow and ice destroyed my previous umbrella base for the AC. The snow must have melted into it, froze and then shattered the welds when it expanded. I should have put it in my garage over winter. But this wood one can take the winter no problem.