The Dragonflies Would Like a Word

The three-pronged mosquito attack plan, and choosing an imperfect kind of stewardship

Hello dearest reader,

Yesterday, while I was on an important client inquiry call, a man in a mask showed up at my front gate and began spraying something foggy toward the plants in my front garden.

Which is not, generally speaking, what one hopes to see while trying to sound calm, encouraging, and entirely focused on a potential design project.

But I was confused and slightly alarmed at what was happening in the garden.

The original mosquito managment plan.

Let me back up.

We live in a 1924 cottage in the mountains of northern Arizona surrounded by national forests. There is wildlife. Lots of it. There are birds and pollinators. Predators. There are pests.

You know, mice and rats that somehow manage to find a way into our 100-year-old stone foundation and into the basement. Where, since we don’t have a garage, we store a few things - it is a cool and consistent temperature, which is good for the few keepsakes we have there.

And, of course, it’s also highly desirable for the mice and rats that want to escape the summer heat.

So, I’ve had this great local company coming to deal with these invaders and the spiders that also love that cool, dark environment. They come three times during the summer/fall and use products that are environmentally safer and not toxic to people or pets.

Last year, late in the summer, after being eaten alive by mosquitoes, we had asked this pest service to place mosquito traps in a few spots around the property.

We had marginal success with that, possibly because we started too late and/or because there are neighbors that have standing water that they don’t treat.

Apparently, somewhere along the way, this was translated into their full three-pronged mosquitoe attack plan for the 2026 season.

No one had discussed this with us.

No one had asked if we wanted the garden sprayed.

And I certainly had not knowingly signed up to have the garden - the same garden I have spent 16 years building as an organic, living, layered place - fogged into submission.

The awkward part, of course, is that I hate mosquitoes.

I do not mean this in a vague, mildly inconvenienced way.

I mean that mosquitoes seem to find me personally delicious, and I would very much enjoy spending the summer evenings on the porch without becoming a buffet.

I’ve tried every remedy under the sun including slathering lavender essential oil all over my ankles and arms, and citronella. Fans blowing on us. I mean the battle is real, right?

Many of you have it far worse than we do.

So back to the man in the mask with the fogger.

This was not a simple, glowing moment of noble environmental virtue.

It was an actual choice: finish the call and pretend I had not seen what was happening, or interrupt the call, run outside, and ask what exactly was being sprayed on the garden.

I chose to run outside, waving my arms to get his attention - that fogger was loud and he had ear protection as well as a mask on, and also arm protectors. Red flag?

I asked him what was going on.

He was not being careless or evasive. He was polite, and I think genuinely trying to be helpful. He is actually a very nice man, just doing his job. Someone had scheduled him to come take care of “things” over here.

He told me that the only way they could "guarantee" less mosquitoes this season was to do this 3-pronged treatment. It included fogging the entire property, setting up these bait traps, and I don’t even recall what the third thing was.

I mentioned that I was worried about the spray killing pollinators and beneficial insects and possibly harming much more than mosquitoes.

He insisted that it was designed to "only target the mosquitoes" but when I asked him what the spray was, he very genuinely responded that he knew what it's commercial name was but didn't actually know what was in it.

This moment stayed with me: he was protected from the spray, yet could not tell me what was in it.

I told him I didn’t want the service without doing more research, and that I was going to cancel it on the spot - knowing, uncomfortably, that he was probably paid by route completion.

I knew this meant that I was going to have to order a larger jar of organic lavender essential oil (yes - it actually does seem to work!), and maybe look for more citronella candles to plop down all over the porches and the garden gazebo. Oh, and those bird bath mosquito rings.

I’ll share a few of those less-dramatic mosquito resources at the bottom of the letter. 👇🏼

The Environment is Not Somewhere Else

It struck me today that this is often where our relationship with the environment actually lives.

Not in slogans.

Or in grand declarations.

But in the inconvenient, ordinary moments when the living world at our doorstep asks us to pay attention.

The environment, in that moment, was not a distant forest, or a global conversation happening somewhere far beyond my reach.

It was the front garden. The pollinators. The soil that I dig. The birds that sing. The entrance gate. The place where I live.

The environment is not somewhere else. Sometimes it is standing at your front gate, wearing a mask, holding a fogger, while you are trying to decide whether your garden is merely decorative or actually alive.

I’m glad I deferred that client call and ran out there waving my arms like a slightly unhinged garden guardian.

Maybe you know this kind of choice too?

Not this exact one, perhaps. But the ordinary moment when convenience, comfort, cost, time, and care all collide - and suddenly you have to decide what kind of life you are actually trying to live.

We do not care for the environment only through big, perfect, impressive choices. We care for it through ordinary, inconvenient, imperfect decisions close to home.

Smaller Living as Stewardship

Most of the time, when I write about smaller, simpler, more beautiful living, I’m talking about easing stress, reducing overwhelm, and making more room for what matters.

But the story of the fogger man reminded me that this way of living also has something to do with stewardship - which coincidentally relates to World Environment Day today.

A smaller, more intentional life changes the scale of our attention.

When we hear the word environment, it can sound enormous. Distant. Political. Scientific. A word that belongs to forests, oceans, melting ice, and global conversations far beyond our own front doors.

But the environment is also the porch. The courtyard. The shade of the tree we sit beneath in the evening. The birds moving through the garden. The quality of the air after rain. The soil under our hands.

And, honestly, the mosquitoes too.

I have come to believe that smaller living, at its best, is not about having less for the sake of less. It is not only about convenience, a more manageable budget, or a lighter stress load.

It is about paying closer attention to what is already here.

It is also about how we can nurture, cultivate, and respect what already exists and belongs here.

Beauty is not separate from stewardship. Often, beauty is what teaches us to care.

When we love the evening light on the porch, we become more protective of the tree that filters it.

When we notice the bees in the herbs, we think differently about what we plant.

When we feel the relief of shade, we understand the value of canopy.

And, when a small old house still serves us well, we may become less eager to replace what could be restored.

Maybe the beginning of environmental care is not guilt. Or trying to live perfectly. Maybe it is attention and love. And noticing what is alive around us, and making one slightly inconvenient choice in its favor.

With contentment & possibility,

P.S. A few less-dramatic mosquito resources for you

Since I did, in fact, choose mosquitoes over the fogger, I thought I’d share a few of the smaller things I’ve been trying instead.

These are not miracle cures, and they are certainly not guarantees. They are simply the lower-impact porch-and-garden defenses I’m more comfortable starting with before resorting to anything that might affect pollinators, birds, beneficial insects, or the living soil.

• Be sure that you don’t have any standing water on your property - it’s easy to miss, make a point to check everywhere.

• Bat Houses — these guys are hungry and will help you manage the population.

• Plant Therapy Lavender essential oil — for a small diffuser, cotton cloth, or porch-side scent ritual. I actually just add a few drops to a palm-sized dollop of my favorite lotion and slather it on. Delicious scent and calming. Works very well for me.

• Essential Oil Coils — gental on humans and pets made with all natural ingredients, these are the old fashioned but eco friendly reliable standard

• Citronella Lantern Candles — useful on still evenings, and at the very least they make the porch feel summery.

• Mosquito Dunks — for standing water areas where mosquitoes may breed. For me that’s my bird baths and also my small fountain.

• Repel Plant-Based Lemon & Eucalyptus Repellent - use this if you don’t like the scent of lavender or don’t want to buy essential oils. It really works.

• Small Vintage Table Fan — deeply unromantic, but often surprisingly effective.

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Nothing here is perfect. But for now, these are the kinds of first steps that feel more aligned with caring for the garden as a living place.

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Image Credits:

1. Naveen Kumar/unsplash

2. Nayem Islam/unsplash

3. Bridgette Elsner/unsplash