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• Aphids bring us awareness

I’m irritated because I’ve been flicking aphids out of my arm hair all day long. I don’t know what the deal is, but an aphid plague has hit CU and it’s really getting in my way of enjoying the otherwise temperate and gorgeous last days of summer.

I noticed the first swarm a couple weeks ago on the corner of Wright Street. I just assumed something died around the intersection and the bugs were out feasting.

If that were the case, though, then a lot of things have been dying around town since these bugs are now everywhere you go. Kids are shielding their eyes as they walk to class to keep the clouds of aphids from getting all up in their face. Bikers are literally getting force fed the little bugs. I even made the mistake of spraying my car window with washer fluid the other day while I was on the road, accidentally caking my window with a swarm.

Apparently, these soybean aphids are relatively new to the area, migrating for the change of season. They may have been growing in large numbers around Central Illinois due to the mild summer weather and have been feeding off of the soybean crops, but now that the summer season is ending, they are preparing to lay their eggs.

What’s most unfortunate though, is that this is something I would care less about if it weren’t something that got in my way. It seems like I — and a lot of people around me — only become concerned with nature when we lose control of it. I don’t usually have to think about what the mild summer means for our food prices, how the change in seasons will affect the businesses around town or how an insect invasion will change the balance of our ecosystem.

I guess it makes sense — I work indoors, I study indoors, and I live online, and when it takes a strange aphid plague to get me to even think once about the natural world, clearly, I need to get out more. But I know I’m not the only one, and while it is a privilege to not have to live in the mercy of nature day to day, maybe we’re being a little ridiculous acting like it’s the end of the world when a swarm of aphids come to town.