Chief Longwind Of The North
Certified/Certifiable
I'm a lover of almost all life. I don't kill spiders (unless they are on me and I'm suprised. Usually I try to brush them off. I see the value of, and actually respect stinging insects such as wasps, hornets, and bees (though I see little use for fire-ants). But there is a class of creature that I dispise and tend to kill on site, with great energy. That insects are those that suck blood.
Any blood-sucking critter drives me nuts and gives me the heebe-jeebies. Mosquitoes are just thick this year, and though the males are important pollinators, the females drive me to distraction. Fortunately, in my neck of the woods, they don't carry any nasty microbes. They just bit and make you itch. There are a few I hate even more than mosquitoes. These are the deer-flies, yellow-flies (very similar to a deer fly), black flies, no-see-ums, gnats, ticks, and horse-flies. Ticks and horse-flies freak me out the most, ticks because they may carry lime-disease, and horse flies because they take such a viscious bite. I understand that in the arid lands, horse flies can actually kill horses due to the large numbers. No wonder wild horses run so much.
Many are the times when as a youth, I'd be playing with freinds in the water, and a horse fly would come to pester me. I'd splash at it, swat at it, dive under water to get away from it, and when I'd come up, there it was, waiting, ready to take a chunk out of my back shoulder, or my calf, or wherever it could land on me unoticed. And deer flies were the main pest while walking the trout streams. The mosquitoes are so thick back in the woods that tehy can drive people from the forest, litteraly.
So, all in all, I hate biting bugs, and have a couple of recent mosquito bites to remind me.
Seeeeeya; Goodweed of the North
Any blood-sucking critter drives me nuts and gives me the heebe-jeebies. Mosquitoes are just thick this year, and though the males are important pollinators, the females drive me to distraction. Fortunately, in my neck of the woods, they don't carry any nasty microbes. They just bit and make you itch. There are a few I hate even more than mosquitoes. These are the deer-flies, yellow-flies (very similar to a deer fly), black flies, no-see-ums, gnats, ticks, and horse-flies. Ticks and horse-flies freak me out the most, ticks because they may carry lime-disease, and horse flies because they take such a viscious bite. I understand that in the arid lands, horse flies can actually kill horses due to the large numbers. No wonder wild horses run so much.
Many are the times when as a youth, I'd be playing with freinds in the water, and a horse fly would come to pester me. I'd splash at it, swat at it, dive under water to get away from it, and when I'd come up, there it was, waiting, ready to take a chunk out of my back shoulder, or my calf, or wherever it could land on me unoticed. And deer flies were the main pest while walking the trout streams. The mosquitoes are so thick back in the woods that tehy can drive people from the forest, litteraly.
So, all in all, I hate biting bugs, and have a couple of recent mosquito bites to remind me.
Seeeeeya; Goodweed of the North