Another prairie product is the mosquito.
There was a yellow variety with striped legs that attained nearly twice the size of the small black ones and they were found in great numbers. They were ever ready for battle and well equipped with a forty‑two centimeter boring apparatus which resulted in a bearing down sensation that was never appreciated by the tenderfoot.
Mosquito hawks with their large transparent wings were ever busy darting over the prairies in pursuit of their prey. Bumblebees and flying ants were common but fleas were unknown. The prairie grass was filled with bugs: crickets, beetles, Potato bugs were numerous, and many anthills were found.
Every pond and slough filled with water in the spring and remained so until mid‑summer, which gave the frogs an ideal habitation and their croaking at evening time was loud and joyous. This, with the crickets chirping all around while the lightning bugs were flying about emitting their electric flash, made a happy and colorful setting for the end of a perfect day.
The pioneer settlers usually had a buffalo skull or two stuck up around their shack and a pair of antlers nailed up over the door or window. Many of them had their shanties lined with different kinds of skins and furs and bordered with striped gopher hides and other skins. Badger, coyote, and fox hides were commonly used for rugs and cushions.
A pioneer custom always followed by many of the settlers, was to keep a lighted lamp burning near the window facing the road during a blizzard or extremely cold weather, so that anyone lost on the prairies might be guided to shelter and to safety by this beacon light at night. Some times lighted lanterns were placed on high poles and kept burning each night during a storm period.
The mere fact that one could look as far as the eye could reach in every direction for miles and miles and know that there was no habitation beyond, especially when the terrible prairie fires or fierce blizzards were raging‑ left a strange feeling and a peculiar fascination akin to the courting of danger which will never again be felt or realized by anyone.
Digging 150 bushel per acre on N. Loesch farm, Melville, 1922
Source: A History of Foster County 1983 Page 133