Our lovely days of napping outside, running through fields, fishing and hanging laundry came to a halt last Saturday as huge swarms of mosquitoes hatched and forced us indoors. Above is a giant one that made its way inside and met its fate face to face with an orange fly swatter. These are called gallinipper mosquitoes and were featured in the local news this week.
I don't know how to explain how bad its been. Just getting (running) the kids into the van they each suffered at least 10 bites on their faces. Paul stopped by a neighbors to chat about the problem and found she was cutting her grass bundled in a hooded windbreaker for protection.
Even staying inside we are getting bit. This is worse than Bear Lake and even worse than my days in southern China.
But we are fighting back with the fly swatter. I use to train my children to carefully carry insects outside and let them live, but since moving to the farm my ways have quickly changed. A few weeks ago I was commanding the boy to squash Japanese beetles with their bare fingers and this week it is swatting as many mosquitoes as visible. Peter has gotten quite good at the swatting and even George is takes a few turns.
Paul was lucky to have spent last week in Phoenix were there was not one in site. This week he will be experimenting with a garlic oil spray that is suppose to help tame mosquitoes.
As for the kids and I, we took a trip "into town" to escape from the mosquitoes and enjoyed a giant banana split.
I'm also upping their vitamin B and experimenting with different remedies like emu oil and purification oil for the itchy bites.........and as for the walls? They are covered in squashed mosquito guts so I'm going to have to paint soon.
Did any of your mosquito remedies work? We've been using plantain to treat bites as well as tea-tree oil and it helps.
ReplyDeleteCourtney- the mosquitos were out of control, even DEET spray did not keep them at bay. My kids stayed inside for several weeks and just running to the car they were covered in bites. I used emu oil and lavender but that just helped with the itch but the swelling and scabbing remained for several days. A friend swears by Nature Sunshine's enzyme spray. We do use fresh plantain for our burns so maybe I should try that on bites now too - thanks!
ReplyDelete