Miller Time

It’s one of those things that real estate people don’t tell you when you are considering a move into a new state.

It is true that Colorado has an inordinate number of beautiful, sunny days. It is also true that it has an inordinate number of days with uncomfortably strong winds.

It is true that spring is an almost unbearably beautiful season. It is also true that many springs are infested with Miller moths.

 Miller moths are harmless but almost intolerable because there are so many of them and so many of them get into my house.

In spring, they emerge from their pupation stage to swarm from the eastern plains en route to the mountains. They spend their summers at the higher elevations, supping on floral nectars and enjoying the cool. I live on the migration route. No one told me.

 Miller moths laze around during daylight hours, apparently waiting for me to turn on my lights when darkness falls. Then they reveal themselves – all the culprits that have managed to sneak into the cracks of doorways and lie, undetected, waiting. Then, inspired by electric beacons, they dance around my living room – or wherever there’s a light.

 They don’t eat cloth. They are not poisonous. They are irresistible to my cats.

 The poor, bored felines whom I confine indoors have nothing but me and several dozen cat toys to amuse them. Moths fly and flit and skitter around- enticing and activating my two cats’ every hunter instinct. And they are great hunters. Wild chases – endangering every breakable object I have been foolish enough to set out – almost always end with the cats catching, and eating, the moths.

 And then throwing them up. Almost always on the beige carpet.

 Looking on the Internet, I find no consolation. “During outbreak years, miller-moth flights may last five to six weeks … However, they tend to be most severe for only two to three weeks.” Whoever wrote that last sentence including the word ‘only’ – must have either been a real estate agent or someone who didn’t have cats (and beige rugs).

 And this year's Miller Time has just begun.