Loving Winter
People often ask me why I love
winter when spring and summer are so warm and sunshiny. While I find every
season beautiful and inspiring, winter dominates my year from the first
snowfall in October to the hallowed May Long Weekend that is unofficially
considered winter’s end and the beginning of the gardening season. With around
seven to eight months of winter, it is a matter of survival that I love it for
its beauty and treachery.
However, the main reason I love
winter above all others is quite simple. A mantra of survival, it is often chanted
by the romantic Northerners that love their lives in the wilderness and have
come to know the earthy, drumming, pulse of the Boreal forest, No mud. No
bugs. Four simple words, the butler who ushers in the elegance of winter,
that dear prelude called frost, is my relief from the dangers of my life.
The banes of my existence are those that make me an
unwilling blood donor. Yes, I mean the kamikaze terrorists that reign for four
very long months: bugs. They come in overlapping waves: mosquitoes, black flies,
horseflies and deer flies, sand flies, and then death by frost. (By now, you can
probably guess what my favorite part of the cycle is.)
Open Season
As you have probably guessed by
now, this blog post is about bugs. In order to convey exactly what my life is
like, it is crucial that I discuss the good, the bad, and the nightmarish. By
far, today’s post deals with the nightmares of life.
For any of you, particularly my American friends and
family, who have seen me at the end of bug season, you know just how focused
(okay, obsessive) I am the moment I see a mosquito go pirouetting by like a
Japanese Zero and you probably know just how hard a slap I have. If I have ever
bruised any of you, I apologize for past emphatic rampages and any that will
occur in the future.
To my way of thinking, the mosquitoes figure there’s an
open season on humans and, likewise, I believe that if I’m to be hunted I’ll do
some hunting of my own.
A Twilight Anthem
If you can, imagine a droning hum building upon itself
with volume and intensity as the sunlight pierces through the trees with the
deep gold of evening that ushers in twilight. Try to imagine the thousands of
mosquitoes necessary to form a roar of angry protest as they fill the forest with
their troops, their legions of liquid grey clouds. Like the trees, the
mosquitoes seem to stem from a single source that spreads through the night as
one large fluctuating mass, unseen.
While I know it to be impossible, mosquitoes seem to know
exactly where even the smallest holes of entry are, they feel like they are
everywhere as a single entity, and definitely feel invincible. I have often
been perplexed to find mosquitoes biting me from inside my work boots (really,
how do they get in there?) and other impossible places, heard their droning
pierce my ears from the inside of my brain out, and felt crazed because I was
unable to escape their force.
The Worst Night of My Life
The worst night of my life occurred in June 2006. At 16
years old, I felt like a princess as I breathed a sigh of relief as the stress
of my very hectic school year began to fade away as the natural beauty
surrounding me melted into my school-wearied soul. As my family exchanged our
usual clothes for the smoked up shirts we normally took camping and our
Carhaart work clothes, I happily grew to view my work gloves and work boots for
the duration of our summer vacation as an extension of myself. Summer didn’t
start that way.
None of us had really felt the psychological impact insects,
particularly mosquitoes and black flies, can have on a person since our years in
Rainbow Lake and Chateh (previously known as Assumption). I’ve always loved
psychology, but that June psychology couldn’t have been further from my mind.
At least, that’s what I thought. As it was, I became my own psychology
experiment.
Over Easter break, we had put up the structure that was to
become our home in 3.75 days. (By “we” I mean my parents did while I sat in a
tarp teepee I constructed and read the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis because, at
that time in my life, I was more help if I stayed out of the way.) However, it
was not yet finished and the upper edge of the structure where the roof joined
to the wall was not sealed; the birds and insects could freely come and go.
We had no intentions of setting up a tent and we desired
to spend the night in our new cabin. After travelling for approximately 13
hours the three of us were exhausted and ready to sleep in comfort without
having to straddle our bodies across the heaving washboard, stick covered,
baked clay ground. There was still that open-air strip that I could stick my
arm out and wave at my parents through to consider. It was Momma who came up
with the genius idea to hang sheets from the roof joists like mosquito netting
round a bed. After supper, we went to bed quite at ease thinking about nothing
but sleep. Sweet, wonderful, sleep.
Yeah, right. First, I discovered a mosquito had decided to
join me for the night under my sheet. Anyone who has ever had a mosquito
invasion in their bedroom knows just how antsy, how jumpy, and above all, how
close the atmosphere can get until you kill the little bloodsucker. Well,
that’s what I set out to do (I wanted to sleep) but before long I discovered a
second problem in my sleeping arrangement. The sheet hanging over my camp mat
was touching me. I remember going “uh-oh…” as I felt dozens of little pinpricks
coming through every inch of sheet that was touching my skin.
The hum grew as what had to be thousands of mosquitoes
found their way into the loft, surrounding us (and biting me). As the hum grew
louder, I felt my grip on sanity weakening in that helpless way that sends any
human straight into a fear driven panic. Without warning, my one tent guest
turned into many as the sheet that draped over me fell down. It was
unintentional but, as I balled up, I may or may not have ripped it from the
ceiling. Between the three of us, how it happened remains a point of contention
though I think it safe to say we all blame the night’s insanity on the
mosquitoes.
I was now fully exposed to the swarming mass of flecked silvery
bodies that whirled around my body as though they were on the giant zero
gravity ride in Calgary’s Callaway Park. Some critics might say I’m crazy for
what I did next but most of those critics have never found themselves in a
virtually unlived in area of the woods, at night, and fully exposed. I felt my
last hold on sanity crack and the fear I normally contain with ease flashed
brightly as hundreds of mosquitoes vied for position on my flesh. If you’re
wondering what that feels like, imagine a needle prick and multiply that
pricking sensation over each square inch of skin you possess. Along with that
pricking sensation, add the erratic jumpiness from a tickle fest that went too
far and caused you to cry out in anger because of the excruciating, unstoppable
low-grade pain. If you can imagine all that, then you are well on your way to
imagining what I must have felt that night.
There had been an intense claustrophobia with me under the
sheet, but now it felt amplified as I saw my tormentors densely swarming everywhere
and round my body, landing to sink the length of a proboscis into my flesh, and
flying off with a drunken droning that told me they were full of my blood. With
mosquitoes on every inch of my body that was exposed to the grey night air,
with them crawling and probing through my thick blonde hair, everything but
self-preservation evaporated and my mind entered a panic dominated state like
no other. I had to get away. I had to get them off.
Grabbing my traitorous sheet I ran down the ladder (I’m
amazed I didn’t break my neck that night given my crazed state and lack of
experience on ladders at that time) and it flapped out behind me as I ran through
the cool air of the thinly stretched sunshine that night. The only thing I
remember from this point of the night is wrapping the sheet round my shoulders,
standing under the palely lit moon, and bawling like there was no tomorrow as I
began running around in my underwear and a pink spaghetti-strap tank top while
my sheet streamed out like a cape. (Actually, if someone had told me there
wasn’t going to be a tomorrow I would have fully believed them in those hours
of pure, helpless agony.) My actions can only be likened to a large game animal
that, being plagued by insects, gets a wild look in his eye and goes bucking
and springing through fields and scraping alongside trees in his desperation to
get away, to be left alone.
In the waning hours of the morning when the vast numbers
of mosquitoes miraculously dissolve and vanish at daybreak, I passed out and
slept. When I awoke, my body was one large welt of bites. It doesn’t help that
I react badly to mosquito bites even if I don’t scratch, but there’s nothing to
do but treat them quickly and leave them alone. Since we weren’t able to seal
out the mosquitoes yet (we didn’t yet have the necessary supplies), Daddy took
plywood and popped it up over the approximately three foot hole that separates
the two lofts from each other when the next evening came. We fell asleep to the
muffled droning that had pervaded my senses and been my apocalyptic nightmare
the previous night as a mosquito coil smoked slowly up through the windows and
into the night sky.
To this day, if one of us says, “do you remember that
night when, Jenny…” each of us knows exactly what the speaker is talking about
and finds it satisfying to go kill a mosquito with masochistic delight.
Jenny’s Survival Kit
1. Learn what times of the day the insects typically swarm
so you can avoid them as much as possible. You’ll discover that this generally
occurs during the warmest parts of the day. Mosquitoes and black flies seem to
dislike temperatures that are either hot or cold, but thrive in warm and just
verging on cool weather.
2. Give up using any product that has any perfume in it. If
you’re like me and use perfumed deodorant, then learn to compensate by putting
more bug repellent around the arm socket to deter the insects.
3. Buy insect repellent that is as high in DEET as possible.
We use Repel 100, which is 99% DEET. The higher the DEET content, the more bug
resistant you will be.
4. Know that really smoky fires are your best friends
because the insects I’ve already described hate it. Yes, I’m encouraging you to
sit in the smoke and wear clothing that is permeated by that extremely smoky
smell when you go camping.
5. STOP buying After Bite, you’re only wasting money. After Bite
consists of ammonia and mink oil, but it doesn’t last nearly as long as you
need for extreme bug bites. I’m thinking of horseflies and deer flies in
particular because of the sheer size of their bites. Instead, grab your
household ammonia and pour it into a plastic bottle (or stick a finger in the
jug, that’s what we do). Let that dry and then apply a nice, thick layer of
calamine lotion or, if you can’t find calamine, I suggest using Aveeno’s
anti-itch cream (it’s relatively cheap and very gentle on the skin).
6. Don’t be afraid to slap just because you feel something
tickling on your skin. You never know exactly what might be there getting ready
to bite.
7. If you’re out for a walk and the bugs are really bad, cut
a willow switch. They’re bendy, don’t really hurt, and extend your reach big
time to slap those unreachable places.
8. STOP scratching. A mosquito bite will go away within 24
hours, on average, if you don’t scratch. If you do, well, then just expect to
deal with the itching for an indefinable time.
9. If you live in bug country, try taking a spoonful of
garlic oil once a day. I got this tip from a young Hutterite woman about my age
and, though I’ve not yet tried it myself, she was able to sit outside with a
bunch of us one day without being bit once so maybe there really is something
to it.
10. If you are bit by a black fly (none of us have tried this technique on horseflies or deer flies), gently squeeze the wound before it coagulates. The bleeding causes the caustic residue to leave you. Then, spit on it. (It's gross, but effective.) I don't know if it's an enzyme reaction or what, but I do know that the spit causes the blood to run freely and, provided you leave it alone, your bite will clear up within an easy 36 hours.
11. Above all, build your immunity. The more immune you are to bites, the better off you are.
So, now that I am feeling totally buggy I think I'll get ready to head back from this little patch of civilization in the Peace Country for My Uncivilized Life.
Enjoy the woods, and enjoy getting back to nature. Ultimately, I hope you enjoy your life.
Love,
Jenny
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