What Are These Insects That Are All Over My House?

So many people are seeing an abnormally large amount of yellow jackets these days.  Luckily, I haven't had those, but I do have these huge mosquito looking things.

Have you seen them?  They look like really big mosquitoes.  But they aren't.

They're called crane flies and they're actually harmless.  Some people actually call them mosquito hawks and think they eat mosquitoes.  Unfortunately that's not true.  Although their larvae are known to eat mosquito larvae.

This year it seems as though I'm seeing more of them than normal.  Is it because we had a cooler summer?  Maybe it's the wet weather we've had over the last couple weeks.

I'm not sure why, but they seem to be everywhere at my house.  We were visiting with our grandparents in East Otto over the weekend and they said they're all over the place there too.

Is that the case at your house?  Have you seen more of them than normal?