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Bug season - or creepy crawly season - is here in East Texas.

When I was much younger I remember visiting and staying with my grandparents during the summer in their older farm home outside of Corsicana, Texas in a small town called Barry, Texas. When it came time to go to bed my grandmother would have us check the bed for spiders and scorpions. They would occasionally find their way in the house and into the foot of the bed and she didn't want me or my cousins to get stung by them.

Now that Summer 2023 has arrived in East Texas we've seen a typical summer pattern so far with showers and thunderstorms before the official first day of summer, followed by intense humidity, then the heat, and the typical summertime pattern of an occasional afternoon shower or thunderstorm. That is summer in Texas and so far this Texas summer has lived up to its expectations. With the heat and humidity Tyler, Texas has seen its fair share of Heat Advisories and Excessive Heat Warnings and now we're seeing an uptick in pests.

When you take the currently available moisture and pair it with the heat and humidity, it's a perfect breeding ground and habitat for unwanted creepy crawlies, even those that fly, as they want to invade our homes, invade and destroy property and do some damage to our vehicles. While some of these insects are harmless and may be doing some good for us, there are those that will fight back and defend their home by stinging or biting us.

When it comes to those bugs that annoy us, like mosquitoes, flies, bees, chiggers, ticks, fire ants, and others, we will spend money on products to protect us while we're outdoors so that we don't contract a potentially harmful disease that they may carry. We'll also spend hundreds of dollars on keeping those insects out of our yards so that the kids can play without getting stung by a fire ant.

These are the typical insects and pests that we try to get rid of each summer here in East Texas.

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