Blog

  • Meeting Doug Tallamy

    Katherine Smith and Doug Tallamy, Kendeda Tree House, Trees Atlanta, February 7 (after his talk, “The Importance & Impact of a Homegrown National Park”)

    Thank you, Trees Atlanta, for bringing Dr. Doug Tallamy to town.

    I know that he is here about once a year, and I am so grateful that folks in our city are regularly interested in hearing and heeding what he has to say. It was my first opportunity to attend a talk in person and to meet him, a delight! I am familiar with his books, with Homegrown National Park, and, of course, with his education on and advocacy for mosquito buckets. He has been both inspiration for and guide in my development of this bucket initiative in Decatur/Atlanta.

    So I am quite familiar with Doug’s encouragement for us to plant and tend natives, even in small quantities, because they make a difference. His work influenced the transformations I started in my own yard a few years ago. I first learned from him the science of Bti and the strategy of mosquito buckets, their real possibility of controlling larvae and the relative ineffectiveness of spraying adults.

    The multiple costs of abatement sprays are staggering, environmental and economical. I learned this week (not from Doug) that Georgia spends over $125,000,000 annually on mosquitoes and their effects, nuisance and disease. And that figure is, I believe, a few years old.*

    I have written blogs about recent research on the drift of pyrethroid sprays and their toxicity to bees, which the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation completed (in part in Decatur) in 2023 and publicized a year ago (see the video on our Resources page). But I learned during Doug’s talk last week about his own study on their persistence. Last summer Doug and students acquired a misting system, treated shrubbery, and examined its insect visitors. The pesticide application killed 26 species over 30 days. The results are not news, but the specificity—the duration and the numbers—are, at least to my knowledge.

    It is my understanding that ULV (ultra-low-volume, but close to 100% active ingredients) mists have to contact the flying mosquitoes to kill them. And many of our local mosquitoes, the container varieties (they are seeking out collecting water around houses in recycling bins, bird baths, flower pots) are not out during the day. Sprays are a short-term solution with lasting consequences — even more reason to spread the buckets, Atlanta!

    My heart is so full, even days after this talk. I appreciate Doug’s clarity and purpose. And because of him and others—many of you also in attendance on Saturday—I hold optimism that each one of us can make a difference, individually and collectively.

    Thank you, Atlanta friends/advocates/gardeners. Thank you, Doug.

    B THE CHANGE. B GOOD TO POLLINATORS.

    *On Wednesday I sat for (and passed!) two exams to become a Commercial Pesticide Applicator, general standards and mosquito biology, surveillance and control. I have more to learn, but I feel so well informed our mosquitoes (63 species in our state!) and full of gratitude for the rigor of the process.

    And I may make some upgrades to the buckets per some ideas that Doug shared. More soon.

  • New (to me and to buckets) Natives

    Over the last three years, I have been seeking out multiple ways to support pollinators, including planting more natives in our yard. I have many that give me great delight, such as the milkweed and butterfly weed that have brought Monarch caterpillars and butterflies, but, from a purely aesthetic perspective (I am an art historian after all), Rattlesnake Master is the most unexpected, sculptural, textural plant, one I do not remember seeing before I started this natives venture. I am thoroughly enthralled with the four plants in our yard, which really leapt, as natives do, in their second year, last summer.

    I am thrilled with the new bucket designs I am working on, compositions made from our own plants. I may have to keep one of these (just as I have the first B Bucket prototype) for our yard.

    Almost all of our native plants, including our Rattlesnake Masters have come from Beech Hollow Wildflower Farm. If you are in Atlanta, and you have not yet gotten to know them, look out for their reopening in March. I cannot recommend them highly enough.

  • Mosquito Season 2026: Are We There Yet?

    Happy new year, all! I have taken a break from posting to go into a holiday hibernation, of sorts, not unlike mosquitoes. I am now back at work: moving into a new workshop, restocking supplies, updating the website, scheduling consultations and winter/spring festivals, and testing new designs. And, remaining attentive to and curious about mosquitoes, which I have added to the list of things about which I never imagined I would attempt to develop a level of expertise, or at least a strong knowledge. But my environmental advocacy, which started from my desire to make informed decisions as a mom, has led me here. So, in this blog, I want to respond to some of the information and activities of the last week.

    Information: on January 8, the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation circulated a social media post about their research on mosquito sprays. Their graphic issues a reminder that they have established the toxicity and drift of these sprays, which deposit synthetic chemicals (pyrethroids) at levels up to many times stronger than the lethal dose for a bee. This number comes from their webinar last spring in which they discussed this research, condensed in this post and linked on our website, also here. This research study included three communities across the US, including Decatur, GA, where we are located, thanks for the tireless efforts of our local Bee City USA — Decatur, GA (Beecatur) and its chairperson, who is on the BB team. Here were the takeaways from their webinar for me: 1) sprayed/fogged pyrethroids are toxic to pollinators, not just when they are applied but as they linger 2) these chemicals more often than not drift into neighboring yards and 3) fences exacerbate the drift — the fog hits hard surfaces and rises, thus the recommendation for shrubs as barriers (yet, affecting pollinators on these strategic plants). Also, other research shows that sprays only eliminate about 10% of flying adult mosquitos at the time of application. If you are spraying, you are paying a lot of money to poison your yard; you are not controlling mosquitoes.

    Here is a link to the media release on the recent publication of this research.

    I was heartened to see that the Xerces Society’s first recommendation includes using Bt dunks, which is what we are putting in our buckets (all other companies I have found in the Atlanta area are using pyrethroids in their buckets; if anyone is an exception to that experience, I would like to be corrected — and would welcome the information).

    Activity: As I was out about about on Friday, I saw evidence of mosquito companies spraying in my area, both trucks circulating on area streets and yard signs warning of pesticide applications. While I know that climate change is creating milder winters, I do not believe that we have the constellation of factors (multiple days about 50 degrees, standing water from rainfall, longer days with more sunlight) to cause mosquitoes to emerge from their diapause, their winter hibernation. Yes, mosquito eggs are still present in our environment and will start to develop with higher temperatures, but they take days 7-10 to complete a lifecycle. It seems overkill (pun intended) to be spraying in January. And yet I know that these companies want to sign customers for the season. Please read on.

    Alternative: Please don’t fall for claims by mosquito spraying companies that what they’re applying is in any way ecologically (or otherwise) safe. Research confirms that mosquito spraying kills almost all pollinators in a yard, including native bees and butterflies. Mosquito spraying harms bird populations already in decline because just about every bird needs insects to feed their babies. The organic sprays offer non-toxic solutions, and also repel pollinators. Bucket systems, which spread control across but not onto a yard, are more effective, more economical, and much safer solutions. If you have contracted with mosquito abatement companies in the past, please talk to us before you sign on this year (and read our reviews on our homepage).

    I am offering free consultations with anyone interested, booking through our website or via email. Thank you to those who have already talked to me this year. I have lots of energy to spread lots of buckets. We helped place about 1000 buckets in Atlanta last year. If you are in Decatur and want to check out our buckets, the Bee-autiful Buckets and our signs, below, are at the Wylde Center’s Market (open 9-5 weekdays at 435 Oakview Road); I am adding festivals, talks, workshops to our EVENTS calendar as we commit to them. Please reach/come out and connect. And special thanks to Laura @nurture.native.nature for your ongoing education, advocacy, and support; together we can make changes to Atlanta one yard at a time.

    BBuckets’ WELCOME signs, both paper and aluminum, seek to counteract the messages and missions of the CAUTION signs left after yard applications, whether of mosquito fogging pesticides or pre-emergent herbicides, both of which kill beneficial insects and disrupt food chains and lifecycles

  • Remembering Sally

    I have spent the day on final preparations for the Fall Plant Festival at the Wylde Center: making a few last Bee-autiful Buckets, punching holes in our WELCOME signs (one with every purchase), printing our instructions for buckets and safety data for Bti dunks. All the while, I have been overwhelmed with thoughts of Sally Wylde, remembering her impact on this neighborhood and her influence on me.

    When I named B Buckets (actually, Nell did) and established the email and social media handles, we became “bbucketsconnect” by rather spontaneous decision; gut reaction might be more accurate. I was in a hurry to get started; mosquitoes were emerging. I will explain the “B” another time, but the “connect,” I know, had various senses, mostly then about wanting folks to understand and consider—as to the connect the dots—the impact of chemical abatements on beneficial insects, their runoff and aquatic life, their disruption of food chains, all things I am hoping the buckets will shift; I knew, at the same time, that it had a far more important intention, at the core of our mission: the necessity of human relationships, sharing and learning, speaking and joining, supporting and extending. This meaning is the one that brings me back to Sally.

    In 2008, I bought an adorable (read: small) bungalow, 503 Adams Street, because I had known for years that I would live in this house (don’t ask me how, I just did), and it came on the market. I wasn’t ready to buy a house, but MY house was available, and I wanted my son, then in PreK, to attend Oakhurst Elementary for kindergarten. So I moved quickly. We were previously just blocks away, but not in Oakhurst.

    We had many wonderful neighbors on this new block, including Sally. She quickly engaged us in her efforts, which extended beyond the Oakhurst Community Garden, as the Wylde Center was then known. We co-hosted in our front yard, a puppet-making workshop for children to make costumes for the Earth Day parade. My son made a car–we joked that surely it was a hybrid–and we joined the festivities. (The car was an even better as a Halloween costume that year when M made me a stop sign and vest, so that I could be a crossing guard to his vehicle/driver). The next year Sally and M made a collaborative project for an outdoor sculpture exhibition for Earth Day, a school of fish from collected rocks, which they added to other public art pieces in the neighborhood for this event, theirs by the stream just off S. McDonough, across the street from Oakhurst Community Garden. Arguably, that creation one fit the Earth Day theme quite a bit better.

    Sally and M had a special relationship; she sewed him a stuffed shark, which she made from one of his drawings, for a birthday. And for the next birthday she left a tree (branch) with wooden fish on our porch, as a gift and in commemoration of their joint art project. I have wonderful mental images of these projects, but no photographs that I can find to share. What I can put my hands on is keychain that M still uses, the only ornament left from the fish tree.

    In the winter, we could see the backyard of the Oakhurst Community Garden from our porch; we spent many hours exploring that space, even once releasing a frog we had raised from a tadpole (with permission) into its water garden.

    As I prepare to join the Wylde Center tomorrow, I acknowledge the lessons I carry and feel from Sally about stewarding, sharing, beautifying, connecting. Thank you, Sally.

  • Joys and Concerns, or About Butterflies

    Over the years, I have attended various from church services in which the congregation is invited to share, anonymously or not, individual joys and concerns from previous or in future weeks for communal celebration and/or care. In that spirit, if not that context, I am making those at the top of my list this week.

    First the joys: On Sunday I found 13 monarch caterpillars on my milkweed, a welcome surprise after keeping eyes out all summer. I have spent the last three years adding native plants to our yard, which has been chemical free for most of the last 25+ years (full disclosure: even we hired a company to fog for mosquitoes one time in 2012 before we knew better and in advance of our backyard wedding). I have planted 10 butterfly weed plants in the last 14 months, specifically to support the Monarchs and other pollinators, and I have been waiting for caterpillars. I can’t articulate how happy I was to see them. I have been checking on them daily, thrilled that they are eating their way through the leaves, entirely stripping one of the plants, even so late in the season.

    Now the concerns: At the same time, I worry about the abundant use of synthetic chemicals in urban landscapes. Since I have been back in Atlanta, I have watched the use of pre-emergents to lawns and mosquito sprays to shrubs become almost daily occurrences; tank trucks move up and down our streets treating yards of families that—I can only imagine—have kids and pets who are being poisoned by these chemicals. I know that each time I take my dogs for a walk, they are sniffing them up in my neighborhood, increasing their likelihood for cancer, even if they are not rolling in them in my yard. I worry about the kids, including my son, who is walking to and from school every day by himself for the first time this year, stepping on and moving through yards just treated with chemicals or cleared with gas-powered leaf blowers, intensely toxic in multiple ways (and I think of all the beneficial insects eliminated at the same time). I worry because I know what it looks like to develop multiple cancers over decades because of airborne exposure, even when you weren’t the one applying the chemicals. And I worry for all of the people who are handling them and breathing them every day with little or no protective gear. I am undone by an industry that has more interest in profit and aesthetics (and I understand their cultural power) than in human or planetary health. I am sickened that our country is coming close to passing a pesticide bill that will shield companies from harm. Yes, I have been making calls.

    Because the prevalence of these chemicals already keeps me up at night, I was not surprised by the news yesterday from the Xerces Society (“Study Finds Pesticide Residue Widespread on Butterfly Plants”) about the high levels and significant drift of urban pesticides. Their effects on butterflies is not news exactly, as we have known that the increase in pesticides use has decreased populations, but the specificity of city spaces, much like mine, and substantial drift is clearer here, I think, than in previous data.

    This report from Xerces reminds us that “butterflies indicate the health of the environment.” Their decline does not make me worry less, but it will make me work even harder to spread buckets. And it will make me smile brighter every day I visit the caterpillars on my organic milkweed. It will help me persevere in my efforts to advocate, educate, connect and, as much as I can, believe that I can keep making a difference, if only one urban yard (and, maybe one college campus or at least a corner of it) at a time. If you have questions about any of the above, please reach out. You know how to find me.

    And if you are someone who prays, sends loving kindness or light or good energy, and/or calls your US representatives, keep them doing what you’re doing.

    And thank you, Peter Helfrich, for making sure that I saw this report, as it indeed substantiates the points I keep making about about pesticides and non-target organisms — and for your own powerful advocacy and your enthusiastic support of mine.

    For those of you who are local, Peter and I will both be in our neighborhood at the Wylde Center’s Fall Plant Festival (435 Oakview Road, Decatur) on Saturday, 10-2, set up next to each other, if our plans work out.

    B the change you would like to see.

  • Thank You for a Terrific Season (we’re not done yet!)

    It is Labor Day Weekend, which, for many marks the end of the summer. For those of us in Atlanta, summer has been waning for over a month. My younger son has been back in school since late July; most area schools are now in session, including area colleges. It seems time to relinquish our period of summer vacation and get back to our academic-year pursuits, a transition that continues to direct the annual cycles in my own life.

    I received an email yesterday from Homegrown National Park, which seemed to close down their first (hopefully annual) Mosquito Bucket Challenge. They thanked the participants, reporting that 130,000 visited their site, and that community members’ feedback encouraged some of their actions, including stickers and handouts (I may be wrong, but I think I had something to do with the former, as they reached out to me and initiated an exchange about the stickers we were designing, still being launched at that point; theirs are great — and combine a couple of the elements of ours, as I shared). And they mentioned that buckets can still make a difference in many areas. In Georgia, we likely have at least 2 more months of mosquito activity.

    On this weekend of transitions, I want to add my gratitude to theirs. Thank you, Doug Tallamy and Homegrown National Park, for spreading the information about the “mosquito buckets of doom,” as they have come to be called and for generating so much buzz in the social media campaign. Thank you, Principal Jennifer Triplett, at Oakhurst Elementary in the City Schools of Decatur, who welcomed goats and buckets a few years ago and made me think this initiative might go somewhere. Thank you, Allison Ericson, Urban Naturalist, City of Decatur, for encouraging buckets in our local neighborhoods and sharing experience with neighbors who had installed buckets and covered several contiguous yards, reminding each other to replenish dunks had made a difference; our idea for regular emails came from that conversation. Thank you, Peter Helfrich, who has advised me on choices and decisions related to pollinators and pesticides for years and who designed the logo for B Buckets in record time; and who makes sure that we are included in the relevant festivals and events. Thank you, Nell Ruby, who has helped with the design of all other aspects of the buckets and the website (and to Anastasia Owen who continues to help me maintain it) and signs/stickers, and has added her generous spirit, ambitious brainstorming, and unbridled enthusiasm for more co-conspired creative projects than I can count, for over two decades. Thank you, Leslie Inman/Pollinator Friendly Yards on FB and Laura Markson Nuture.Native.Nature, and Claudia McDavid/Atlanta Botanical Garden and Annie O’Neill/Woodlands Garden, who elevated our presence in the Atlanta area by sharing our buckets in workshops and on social media and invited us for strategic demonstrations/presentations. Thank you, Andy Jones and Tony Powers, at Intown Ace Hardware who sourced black buckets and even hydroponic lids and bought out warehouses at least twice to keep both in stock for local purchases; their collaboration helped spread hundreds more buckets in Decatur than I would have alone. Thank you, Jarvis Adams and Derrick Thomas at the City Schools of Decatur, who supported the pilot project and welcomed buckets to playgrounds. And thank you, all of the B Buckets clients, who have tried buckets this seasons, through our delivery or instruction; there are, we estimate, about 1000 more buckets in the Atlanta area now from our collective efforts. It has indeed been a community effort, for which I am so grateful.

    And while we are not done yet for this year–still building buckets, sending reminders, serving schools–we are already making plans for next spring to continue to spread our educational efforts and safer alternatives to sprays & fogging to our local community – and beyond.

  • Pilot Bucket Project, City Schools of Decatur

    On Tuesday, August 19–just in time for World Mosquito Day and the beginning of our academic year–Nell and I installed mosquito buckets at Fifth Avenue Upper Elementary in the City Schools of Decatur, part of a pilot project we are doing in collaboration with Intown Ace Hardware. This is the second school in the system to have buckets. Andy at Intown Ace and I have both placed buckets at schools where we are parents; principal and parents at the first school, where buckets were added to the playground in June, report that they have made a big difference, even this year with all the heat and all the rain in Georgia. We are thrilled to be offering this pilot to protect our kids from mosquito bites, better for their general health, of course, and also their focus during the school day. We hope to add buckets to more schools in the system.

    If you are thinking that this is not the best time of year for bucket installation, you are right. There is evidence that the efficacy of such systems improves if the system start the year in place, which is our goal for spring 2026. This fall, we think, we can learn a lot from where they are placed on school grounds, which is always a bit of trial-and-error as you get to know the intricacies and nuances of particular properties.

    And this is a culture shift that we are leading, together, we think. It is my experience that Georgia residents who do not otherwise engage mosquito abatement companies or spray their yards sometimes choose to do so in August and September because the mosquito activity is still high (especially now) from the summer of heat and rain, and we are all a bit weary of having plans compromised by their persistence; and now concerns about mosquito-borne illnesses (like West Nile, which arrived in the Atlanta-area in July) are real.

    It is brave and bold to choose buckets; they are not the easy choice. There is much more chatter about chemical solutions, often presented as safer and less toxic than we think they are (always ask for Safety Data Sheets). They are not a quick fix; it seems that spraying makes people feel like they are resolving the challenge quickly, even if that’s not the case, as we explain on other pages on this website. Buckets, especially with Bti (if you are looking into buckets, again ask for Safety Data – all the ones we know of from companies in our area use a chemical larvicide; we’ve asked everyone we know of who advertises “non-toxic” buckets and ours are the only ones), are a longterm, effective, and safe solution, using scientific methods and knowledge and creative and critical thinking and, in our case, visual messaging, in text and image. For me, as educator and parent, this bucket project involves what I want to model and to teach: observation, reflection, patience, persistence, flexibility, risk, communication, at least.

    As those of us at B Buckets keep saying, Bti buckets are better for our pollinators, our people, our pets, and our planet. And we are always happy to explain that perspective, which comes from years of curiosities, conversations, reading, and, full disclosure, mom intuition and insistence.

    Thank you to Mr. Adams, Mr. Thomas, Ms. Jackson and the staff of FAve who have talked about and helped with installation — and have been willing to enter this partnership, a teaching and learning opportunity for us all!

    Nell Ruby, Principal Derrick Thomas, Katherine Smith
    Katherine Smith, Desha Jackson

    all photographs by Nell Ruby

  • World Mosquito Day, August 20

    It seems like we are living in a time of daily celebrations (ice cream, doughnuts, etc.) that I do not remember from my childhood. While many of these are news to me, they are not necessarily new, as is the case of World Mosquito Day, which I just learned about from Wondercide (they are offering 20% products, all of which I highly recommend).

    So I just went to Wikipedia for more information, and I learned that we are commemorating Sir Ronald Ross’ discovery of the transmission of malaria via female mosquitoes in 1897. It is a good reminder of the persistence of mosquitoes and their role as vectors for multiple diseases, which seems especially relevant as West Nile cases are rising across Georgia, as they have often done, especially recently, this time of year as the temperatures and rainfall increase in summer months and provide relatively consistent and prevalent breeding opportunities.

    Of course, with the launch of B Buckets, World Mosquito Day has new personal significance for me. I am an art historian embracing the science and embarking in many ways, as I said yesterday to our local upper elementary school, on what is the most significant STEaM project I have embraced: using the life cycle of the mosquitoes and design strategies from visual arts to offer buckets that combine methods and messages in a new way to eliminate mosquitoes and support pollinators.

    While this day is more commemoration of an individual (lost in its nominal designation) than the insect, it is an encouraging reminder that such discoveries lead to change and start sometimes with a single individual (though I am sure that Sir Ross had others with him).

    I am grateful for Dr. Doug Tallamy and his efforts to explain and disseminate mosquito buckets. Many of us have learned from him. And I am grateful for those like Peter Helfrich of Beecatur and Georgia Beekeepers Association, who has taught me so much about pollinators and local advocacy. I appreciate all of those in Decatur and Atlanta who have been working with me to spread the buckets, not just those who are stocking and building but also those who have trusted and invited and risked. I celebrate all of you today, especially our clients who have opted for buckets and given up chemical sprays. Today I admire and commend you most of all.

  • Care-ful Decisions, Revised & Revisited

    (re)marking challenges & (re)moving In2Care buckets, summer 2024

    As we are becoming more visible in the Atlanta area–thank you, families!–I am getting more contacts and questions, including about different types of mosquito buckets. A few of our potential clients have, I think, opted for the mosquito buckets installed and serviced by several other local companies. These, to my knowledge, all come from the In2Care system, designed in the Netherlands.

    And I get it. My family had those in our yard for several years. They were, at the time, the best choice I could find. And some of the companies in Atlanta whose missions and values I admire and support use them. If you want to know who they are, reach out. I can recommend them.

    BUT I did not understand then that In2Care systems use a synthetic, chemical larvicide (pyriproxyfen), albeit in low doses, in combination with a fungus that causes it to adhere to female mosquitoes and be spread to other water sources. Ortho Home Defense “Mosquito Kill & Defense” is a new product, which uses the same technology: same chemical insecticide, different bucket design.

    Pyriproxyfen is a growth regulator and, in many ways, has the same effect as Bti, which is a biological agent. In2Care and Ortho systems are certainly better than abatement sprays, but their chemicals will still harm pollinators who venture into buckets. The Bti in B Buckets will not.

    When I had In2Care’s system and proprietary buckets in my yard (for a few years), we have ongoing issues with the buckets, especially in the final year. I designed B Buckets to reduce chemical controls and resolve functional challenges. The buckets were constantly toppled by squirrels (and the water spilled out, making the system ineffective); the lids stopped attaching, multiple times (the buckets were removed and reinstalled–new each time, so I thought–every fall/spring). When the buckets turned over and broke apart, they invited more squirrels and also my dogs. I stopped putting them inside my fence.

    So far, there have been no reports of any squirrels, dogs, or kids getting into or knocking over B Buckets.

    In this, our inaugural season, we have placed buckets in almost 70 yards so far in neighborhoods around Atlanta. We anticipate that we’ll start offering installation and service next spring, as we surmise that these options are leading some families to choose In2Care. And, as working parents, we get it. And we are trying to resolve this issue, too. We believe in B Buckets – safer for bees, butterflies & birds, and better for pollinators, pets, people & our planet.

    If you are reading this blog, and you would really like monthly service as an option in 2025-26, please reach out and let us know.

    *and thanks to Laura @nurture.native.nature for thoughts on these distinctions between buckets earlier in the summer

  • West Nile in DeKalb County: An Appeal for and Review of Certain Sprays and Fogs (but NOT Synthetic Chemical Varieties)

    News is hitting my media sources today about mosquitoes testing positive for West Nile, now in our county if not yet in our zipcode. Our local public schools are now in session. Everyone (including me) will likely pay more attention to preventing mosquito “bites”. This is, as my earlier post on West Nile indicates, not the time to spray, though I expect many will be tempted, even those who have not sprayed before. You will kill lots of insects (up to 1000 species in a typical residential yard, still hard for me to believe), and likely very few mosquitoes, and only adults. But if you have been visiting out site, you know this already. Expensive poison for the pollinators.

    I have only just begun to have Monarchs on my milkweed, finally (I will post a picture if I can get one – they show up most often when I am wrangling dogs; the Swallowtail above for now). It is the Great Southeast Pollinator Census in a few weekends (August 22-23, 2025). Now is not the time to spray, though counties will likely make that choice; some have already. I know because the residents of one just got more buckets. And, just as a reminder, there are many other ideas on our Resources page, many from our Bee City USA – Decatur, GA (Beecatur) folks.

    So I didn’t think I would find myself in the business of product reviews, but I also never imagined myself in a business at all… I am going to offer some, more positive than my last blog about Thermacells, to tell you about repellents that I use. I can recommend them, in all cases, from years of personal experience with all of these companies. We have all of these in stock right now, and while our focus is buckets, we have decided to stock these in order to share them – quickly. Because sometimes you need something right now and may not want to endorse the express delivery services for political or other reasons. And you may want to just test it. And you can. And you can (sort of) buy local.

    Badger’s Bug Repellent Balm Stick (or Anti-Bug Balm, the name I like better): This is BY FAR my favorite essential oil repellent. It works.

    It is not a spray. Parents, I imagine the significance of that is not lost on you. Kids can apply it themselves, even young ones, and it does not go straight in their eyes.

    Most of the ingredients are organic, which is important to me. It includes citronella, but it doesn’t smell like it. I don’t mind citronella myself, but it is not my favorite. This combination of natural fragrances is pleasant, at least to me. And those who know me know I am fragrance free, even fragrance averse, so for me to really like this one, it has to be good.

    The company also produces a spray, with a slightly different composition. We have that, too, in the small size, as a trial.

    Note: I know folks who get migraines from fragrances can sometimes not use such products. And, it is my understanding and experience, that sometimes it is the chemical composition of the fragrance; natural ones hit us different, at least sometimes. If you are willing to try these, we have testers and individual incense sticks for this purpose, more below. And we bring them to you.

    The Flyaway Sticks by Madison James are our favorite repellent for our yard in my family. Even my husband, who is often at a different point on the chemical-to-natural/non-toxic spectrum, likes and asks for these. And while we have used 4 at a time in the past, we have discovered this summer that 1 will cover our entire backyard. Again, they are essential-oil based sticks (geranium, clove, cedar), all of which repel mosquitoes. In combination, we think they are magic. These sticks smoke for about 2-2.5 hours; they linger for longer.

    The company’s current website is pro-pollinator, which we appreciate. In my memory, the last website indicated that these were developed for horse farms/barns in Texas to repel flies, thus the name. I assure you they work well for mosquitoes, too. They are our choice for late afternoon and evening gatherings in our backyard (and/or oscillating fans), especially this time of year.

    Wondercide: These essential-oil forward products for pets are another top choice at our house. We have two miniature Australian shepherds, and we have used their shampoos and soaps (the latter discontinued, sadly) for years. We also use their spray on our dogs. In years past I have used it primarily when we were in areas with ticks, for added protection. This year I have been using it daily since the beginning of July. [They offer a yard spray, which I have admittedly had sitting in my utility closet for over a year. About the time I ordered it, I learned that these oils can harm lightning bugs (fireflies to non-Southerners), and I have been reluctant to use it for that reasons, without the time to do more research. Perhaps someone who knows more, and/or from the company, will read this blog and leave a comment with research/evidence. In the meantime, I will keep spraying the dogs.] I include a picture of Trace with (we think) an early-evening mosquito bite on his eye before I started the daily routine — because mosquito buckets do a lot, but they do not zero populations.