the itch you shouldn't scratch

Summer's back here in Fort McMurray and there's a couple of things that come with summer. The first notable thing that comes about with summer is the caterpillars. And not just one or two of the little blighters, but literally swarms of them.

Apparently its an annual thing here. Such an annual thing that it was reported on the radio near hatching time that the municipal council was out spraying .. because there were something like a billion caterpillars expected to hatch.

Now that is a lot of caterpillars. There were patches of them on the trees, square feet of black patches of caterpillars. I went out to Tom's soccer and there was some pine fencing and there were lines the entire length of the fence, caterpillars crawling from one end to the other, head to tail.

They don't last for too long though, only a couple of weeks, so that now there are really none to be seen.

But they have been replaced. There's a new menace on the prowl.

Mosquitos. And maybe they're not quite present in the same numbers as the caterpillars, but they're more mobile and they're a hell of a lot more vicious.

We brought the rid back with us when we came back after easter as we've been told that the local stuff doesn't have the active ingredient that makes rid so good. And so the other night I went out to play a game of soccer and Caroline told me to remember to take the Rid, because i was playing on the field that she usually plays on and its a bit of a meeting place for the winged vipers.

I of course agreed that that would be a good course of action and promptly left it home. I borrowed some stuff off of one of the locals and covered every inch of my bare skin and that seemed ok. After the game, as we stood around and had a few beers, it was an interesting little dance that one adopted, trying not to spill the beverage whilst trying to swat away mosquitos like the planes attacking king kong at the top of the Empire state, though they seemed to bring more friends than the planes did against kong.

I thought I had survived ok, but then the following day, the dots started to appear. Little red, mosquito induced welts all over the backs of my calves. Turns out that the little bastards had found something of a loop hole. Get me through my socks. Being long socks, i'd left them up, thinking that this would at least protect part of my body from the swarm.

It wasn't really until the following day that I realised this though. Not until about the time that I suddenly felt itchy all down the back of my calves. And after a day in jeans, with the denim not so gently caressing them all day, I finally took them off and found my legs to look something like a crazy drunks version of abstract join the dots.

Eventually, they might even fade away ...