Well, it is that time of the year again. Sitting quietly, minding own business, suddenly a huge sharp penetrating bite on arm or leg or neck. Look around, the tiniest flies ever, must be 1mm across and almost invisible, but inflict one heck of a nasty nip. (And not a sting, nothing injected. Well, not by the fly).
Amazing OFSO as the Mrs. and I have the same issue at home in the backwoods, and beyond the hills, of Connecticut.
However, unlike your pests ours wait in ambush. In the morning, as soon as we open the front patio screen door, the pests pounce punctually. (what an eye-opener, to say the least.)
Failing that tactic, they await my arrival at my car where upon they initiate an overwatch attack. (Overwatch is an infantry tactic where a squad will attack "overwatched" by another, but stationary, squad.)
At night, should we dare to leave a porch/patio light on, they hover around there until one of us is stupid enough to open the door. (Even with they light off they still hover near any given door. Waiting.... waiting.... waiting..... lurking...lurking...lurking
To wit: I have decided the next time this happens I will initiate a counter-attack. The mother of all counter-attacks that is. Armed with an aerosol can of bug spray, and my handy-dandy cigarette lighter, I plan on engaging the brutes with chemical warfare supplanted by a flame thrower. I will toast them into oblivion. If the chemicals don't get 'em, the flames of hell will indeed.
Flaming Chemical Weapons Massacre in the Hills of Connecticut - Part I
Makes sense, Milo. We live in a house surrounded by forests. Do not trees give off carbon dioxide at night and oxygen during daylight hours? That would explain the pesky midges.
Midges are attracted to Carbon dioxide Stop breathing and they'll leave you alone Just be happy you don't live in Scotland
The West Coast is particularly bad. Up here our island is mercifully free from mosquitos, midges and other annoying beasties. No predators either so hens & ducks can be left out all the time.
Got those nasty biting tiny ones here. Only become visible when they're almost in your eye, which is what they're aiming for. Quick bite in the corner of the eye, then they're off and invisible again.
I don't but am close enough that it makes little difference to the viciousness of them (Kielder Water is as bad as well). They lurk happily around the fir tree by the garden gate, I've got a solution though, the tree will be going to the great wood-chipper in the sky in the not too distant future.
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It's drought or mozzies here. Not as bad as the bitey ones. Had those in Canyon Lake Tx. Never saw one, but looked like a semaphore sender on steroids.
You should all move to Frinton. We didn't allow things like that there. Seriously, can't remember being bitten once in 33 years.
I have the extra problem of not being able to use chemicals. Became allergic to a slew of things in my 60s.
I speak as one who isn't troubled by midges (even during many Scottish holidays and fishing trips to Kielder Water) though Mrs G-CPTN attracts them (and suffers their attacks).
For years the Marines at Faslane who guard nuclear missiles and the submarines capable of firing them have looked for an answer. Instead of using mosquito repellent issued by their unit, soldiers and workers at the base are buying Avon body lotion to repel midges on the West Coast. The wonder cure is a bottle of dry oil body spray from Avon's Skin So Soft range.
Ex Kingston, Jamaica we'd a couple of kids on the flight deck, both British born ethnically African children of Jamaican immigrants. They said that the mossies attacked them but not the Jamaican born relatives they'd been visiting. My guess is that the locals were bitten just as much but, due to acclimatisation throughout their lives, their skin didn't react with the same histamine response.
Quote:
The wonder cure is a bottle of dry oil body spray from Avon's Skin So Soft range.
"Hearts of oak are our ships, Jolly tarts are our men"
In northern Canada we have an insect we call a deer fly. About the size of a housefly, but with kind of brownish-green wings. Camouflage probably. When they bite, they remove a piece of flesh and take it back to Mrs. Deer Fly and the kiddies, whereupon she sneers "Is that the best you can do, pencil dick?" He now comes back for a second piece of you, only now he's really, really po'd.
We have something similar - the Horsefly or Cleg Bites and takes blood, but also eats shit so bites always end up infected. Used to be common as they hang around cattle, but modern veterinarian drugs seem to have reduced their numbers. (Ivermectin gets carried into cow dung and kills them off when they eat it). Text books will tell you they don't eat dung, just pollen - but I can assure you otherwise! - as can anyone who's lived in the countryside I believe they have deerflies up in the Scottish hills, but I've never come across them knowingly FYI you got the story slightly wrong -its the females that take the bite - they need a blood meal before they can produce eggs
Last edited by Milo Minderbinder; 27th Jun 2012 at 21:47.
At a recent agricultural show, I was standing near a pile of freshly-deposited horse-poo, which, although it was in a 27 acre field that is normally a rugby-ground and not where any animals are kept for at least a mile away, the dung was soon 'covered' in horseflies (the khaki ones). Heaven knows where they came from.
