MESQUITOS

It’s that time of year in Lake Havasu City, when allergens seemingly rise out of the ground, ready to wreak havoc on allergy sufferers. I’m one of those people. Like so many newcomers—I came here blindly thinking that the desert is a great place to escape pollens. Arizona isn’t the only state in which allergies rule the land.

In Alaska, cottonwood trees bloom every few years, sending cotton fluff, seeds, and spores floating throughout the air. Many times, it’s so thick that they totally blanket driveways and parking lots. Trying to mow dry grass with this stuff clinging to it generally leaves me teary eyed and hacking. Kleenex tissues were generally kept wadded up in both pants pockets.

In 1982, we had a tall cottonwood tree in our front yard until a strong Chinook wind took it down, directly on top of two vehicles. The ‘good hands people’ expeditiously took care of that problem. A local oil company was giving away chokecherry tree saplings at this time, and I believed I did the right thing by planting one where the cottonwood once stood.

The chokecherry is now considered an invasive plant in Alaska, and the city of Anchorage went so far as to ban the selling of them within city limits. Ours lasted a good twenty years before another Chinook windstorm along with heavy snow split it in half, this while we were vacationing in Arizona. Today, that part of the yard is void of a tree, which is okay with me, because we no longer own the place.

Getting back to the problem at hand: mesquite trees, or Prosopis glandulosa as they’re botanically called. I wouldn’t lose sleep if our city leaders banned the selling of them. Problem is, I don’t know anyone having purchased a mesquite, since these allergen producers are free for the plucking. Like the Palo Verde, they can inconveniently sprout up on their own.

It’s hard to imagine anyone planting “mesquitos” on purpose. I sometimes use the word mesquitos to describe this pesty species for obvious reason. Mosquitos and mesquitos are things I believe humans can live without.

Mesquite trees grow wildly to the south of our house, and in conjunction with a neighbor’s unkept yard, we have every type of weed imaginable in close proximity to my nose. Because of this—each waking day is spent going through a medicinal regimen to keep allergies at bay.

Quail have taken to these trees as home, and being a lover of birds and wildlife, those now flowering trees can stay for this reason alone. If it wasn’t for this, the mesquites near my place would be eliminated through an act of nature, namely an axe.

Of course, some will emphatically tell me that honeybees need those trees as well, and they were here long before I was. Having a sarcastic and off-the-wall response for these folks, I’d quickly reply back with the title of an old Beatle’s song, “Let It Be!” That’d have them scratching their heads for several seconds until figuring out what I truly meant was, “Bug off!”

On the internet, a person can find something positive or negative on most every subject. If I was searching for something positive on smoking tobacco, I could locate such. Mesquite trees have lovers and haters. The lovers say that they’re good for the environment, while haters say they consume too much water and choke out other plant life. For this article, I looked strictly for the negative.

An agricultural writer named, Travis Urban, wrote a piece saying this about the foliage, “Mesquite trees are some of the worst invasive species on the planet, and are known as the devil with roots.” He went on to explain why.

“Native to arid and semi-arid regions, this tree is capable of thriving in most conditions. Mesquite has the ability to grow a tap root 200 feet down, and roots that spread and search for water up to 50 feet outside the tree canopy. These features not only enable Mesquite to survive in areas other trees will not, but also choke out surrounding vegetation.

Mesquites are heavy water consumers. A single tree can consume nearly 21 gallons of water per day. Mesquites absorb groundwater and lower the water table effectively causing surrounding vegetation to die off, making it able to thrive and spread.”

Sounds reason enough for government to begin select extermination, much like the State of Arizona did with feral pigs, and the State of Alaska initiated on wolves.

I don’t think this will happen for several reasons, namely, those precious birds and bees desperately need the trees for survival. Having to accept things as they are because of not being that high on the Arizona pecking order, I’ll continue to fight allergies by keeping plenty of Tylenol, Aller-Tec, Fluticasone Propionate, Qvar, azithromycin, amoxicillin, codeine-laced cough syrup, and excellent doctors within close proximity.

Arizona cowboys wore bandanas over their mouths back in the day, undoubtedly, because of having to endure the dreaded mesquite pollen and dust. Learning from them, perhaps I should start doing the same. It must’ve worked, because how many cowboys or cowgirls have you seen with a box of Kleenex strapped to the back of their saddle!