|
|
|
swarms of black flies
Tuesday, April 29 2003
Using lots of caulk and expensive White Pine planks as exterior trim, I finished the door today. Later I turned my attention to the concrete-block-and-stone steps leading down to the backyard, which I've recently begun strengthening with concrete (a marvelously inexpensive building material). Work on this particular project seems to be hampered by two factors. The first is that I tend to work on it after finishing a celebratory beer, so my mind is usually a little clouded-over. The second is the swarms of attacking black flies. They seem to be in their greatest numbers right at the edge of the woods, where these steps happen to be. Also, I usually work on the steps at about sundown, right about the time the flies are at their worst. Hundreds of them form a cloud around my head, and when I go to shoo them away I always hit several with my hand. A few of them (but not as many as you'd think) work their way down to my exposed flesh, where they land and begin sucking my blood. Their bites are not nearly as noticeable as those of a mosquito, and they leave almost none of a mosquito's persistent itch once they've gone. But their sheer numbers give them an exceptionally high irritation value.
Interestingly, the swarms of black flies don't go far from the woods. Individual black flies can occasionally be found on the back deck (50 feet from the woods), but outside of the swarms, the flies aren't really all that irritating.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?030429 feedback
previous | next |
