Please Rescue Me!

If they're flying, I hate them, and in Maine, there's plenty to hate. In the spring, the blackflies (mini-vampires) swarm around your head waiting for your veins to start popping from the aggravation of their presence in everything you want to do outside; then come the "sparks-from-hell that are nearly invisible but their bite feels like a spark just landed on you. Fortunately, black flies and sparks from hell don't hang out long, and are usually splitsville by July. Mosquitos are flying mouths that hang around a dusk and in dark places all summer long. I try to not hang out when and where they do and it suits us both fine.

Deer flies, on the other hand, might just put be in the padded cell crying for my mommy. We are in the midst of a heat wave in Maine, which is a wonderful thing. The ONLY flying things around are deer flies. Some people call them moose flies (I think moose flies are even bigger than deer flies), and some people call them horse flies. Whatever they are called, I hate them. I am an avid gardener but I can't go outside to water my plants until it's pitch black night or they are flying around my head in formations the Blue Angels would envy. If one is fortunate enough to land while I'm swatting them, while trying to aim the hose, it's the equivalent of the playful "horsie-bite" by grandfather would dole out when he was sick of me climbing on him. For those of you who have never met my grandfather, a horsie-bite is a no-mercy pinch to whatever piece of flesh is available. At least the deer flies don't have than maniacal laugh...

I would love to be working outside on these beautiful days. I have a light laptop that balances quite nicely on my knees and when I'm in the "zone" I need neither a pen nor paper. Unfortunately, a deer fly can bring me out of the zone from his first revolution around my head. I am so distracted by even one that I cannot think straight, so I head inside to my office. I feel like I'm being held prisoner in my office by a winged brigade of biting guerrillas. I know they are just outside my door waiting for me to come out so they can continue their war games.

I can wait them out. I've got provisions to last quite awhile, and they don't. Or do they?