27 Jul (Thu) Flies have been horrible in the cabin of late. Nothing new, just another fairly minor distraction in ranger-world. They think there’s something to eat in here, apparently, and one or two get in every time I open the door. (Actually seem to lurk around, hoping to sneak in….) They follow mosquitoes through those big gaps under the eaves and through the cat door when gusts of wind blow it open. Every morning, by around 9 a.m. the predominant sound inside the cabin is buzzing dipterans. Little ones. Big ones. Really big ones. (Tachinids—nectar-suckers. Why do they want in?) When I get home after work the windows are crowded with bored insects ready to go back outside. Indoor flies offend my native fastidiousness and spoil the quiet. So I go after ‘em with my special fly-killing machine—a specially designated dish-towel used for nothing else—and slaughter dozens. Daily. Fly corpses drift around the floor before I sweep them all up and, if I spot any “walking wounded” I’ll go out of my way to crush them under foot. ◦◦◦◦◦ A week or so ago I swiped at a big, fat, bristled fly. Got her good—uh, maybe too good, shmeering her onto the window pane in scattered pieces. I’ve learned that lots of these individuals are females chock full of eggs and when they get turned into skidmarks like this I find their scattered eggs stuck to the glass. Somewhat revolting. When I smashed this particular mother-to-be, though, I saw that all those pale bits on the glass weren’t eggs. They were moving! Pre-formed maggots! She was full of maggots!! [visceral shudder of revulsion here] Q: Had they hatched inside her before she could drop the eggs or was this a “fly thing”? Dunno. While I’m generally not squeamish about stuff like this—I greatly admire parasites and all the decomposers—this, I found strangely disturbing. (Perhaps for the grim existential overtones.) Couldn’t leave it/them plastered on my window so fetched the Windex and paper towels and wiped up the carnage. Now I just have to put away the mental image. ◦◦◦◦◦
28 Jul (Fri) As mentioned yesterday, this is “fly season.” It’s been particularly bad, I think, because the warm days have been followed by unusually warm nights. Noted before how pervasive the sound of them is after about 9 a.m.—a continuous buzz-zz-zzing. A whirling about, back and forth, back and forth…. Drives a book-ish, ponderizing person nuts when it’s otherwise so blissfully quiet and peaceful. So I get pretty obsessive when it comes to killing flies. Kinda scary, in fact, to see the intensity behind the way I go after them: swatting hard, with a follow-through grunt; going after the just-dazed or permanently maimed to finish them off. Pretty grisly, yup. But it’s just one of those things you see happening to yourself when you live alone in the woods. Compulsive behaviors begin to manifest. Silly little things turn into no-longer-silly big things. ◦◦◦◦◦ Of course it’s much worse outside. Delightful summery days but I’m spending very little of my down-time outside just now. Used to spend tons of time bundled in my mosquito-proof suit out on the porch, just sitting and watching or writing. But when it’s like this it just isn’t very relaxing. The deerflies and, especially, the giant green-head horseflies are beyond distracting—they’re downright intimidating. Unnerving. The greenheads hover around, buzzing. More of a sinister metallic whirr—a strident, unmistakably menacing sound. Even covered with DEET they hunt me, circling like vultures. Walking around the yard, saddling horses, dumping dishwater, taking the view, whatever—they’re out there somewhere waiting patiently for a chance to saw a steak off the back of my neck. Most disconcerting of all: you hear this zzzzzt! That stops abruptly. Can’t see it, but whatever it is has just landed on you somewhere. Somewhere you can’t reach. So you dance around and flail your arms in a minor terror. Little flying marauders with dagger-sharp mouthparts that want to suck your blood. Point is: ranger-life is not all fun and games and flower-sniffing. But the sweet far outweighs the not-so-sweet. ◦◦◦◦◦
24 Aug (Fri) ◦◦◦◦◦ Apparently the renewed warm weather has hatched a new batch of flies. By the time I’d finished with lunch a number had snuck into the cabin and were buzzing around without ever stopping for a breather. It illustrates my mental state that these six-leggers were driving me nuts, destroying the immaculate silence. Repeatedly, I’d stop what I was doing to stalk them with swatter-rag cocked. My silent witness-self observed the crazed ranger resolutely hunting flies…creeping up on them all stealthy-like, with genuine manic blood-lust. There’s so much “acceptable” noise and distraction in most people’s worlds. So most of them wouldn’t get why the incessant buzz of three or four big, fat flies causes so much annoyance. Still, it was some pretty neurotic behavior I was witnessing. With some mild dismay. Oh, well.
©2021 Tim Forsell
28 Mar 2021
