MOSQUITOS SWARMED US! YEECH.

I’m not feeling too well today so I’m going to make this short and as informative as I can…

On our Mother’s Day ride today, Finn and I were swarmed. Big time.

We went to the same place we have gone for 7 years now – during every season – and I’ve never had this happen.

Yes, we had on fly spray. Both of us.

I needed a suit like this...

OUR JOURNEY

Since it was Mother’s Day, I had to be back home by 11am for brunch so we loaded up and left early.

Maybe that was a mistake because it was cool this morning. But, not cold. It was perfect for a ride – and mosquitos, evidently.

Anyway, there weren’t any bugs in the staging area. We were fine.

It wasn’t until we were on the Trail and Finn did his usual of ‘not walking on the trail’ thing. He wanted to walk on the side of the trail through the bush.

That is when we first noticed the huge swarms of mosquitos that flew up into his nose, covered his legs and neck and flew all over my face (the rest of me was covered). It was eerie and kinda gross, actually. Yeeech.

I kept swatting them off of Finn and then I’d feel a few climbing in my hair under my helmet. Double Yeech.

So I urged him onward and forward ON the trail.

But the damn things were everywhere! We could not get away from them! This was the first time ever that I had run into this type of issue. Usually the mosquitos are in a bush or near a stream but you can get away.

Today we couldn’t.

Finn kept shaking his head and sneezing. I kept swatting myself and him like a symphony conductor.

We weren’t having any fun.

So, we left.

Yup. It was about a 20 minute ride… And as we were returning to the trailer, we saw another group of early horsemen. I told them about the mosquitos and said that we had decided to turn back. The looked at me dubiously but they, too, turned back to get some spray to bring along. I hope it went better for them.

Run for your lives!!

RESEARCH

I did some research upon my arrival back home.

Yes, only females will bite but they all swarm. The live in shaded bushes, tall grasses and trees (lucky us!).

Mosquitos are attracted to movement, heat and carbon dioxide. So, if you are a sweaty, warm, heavy breathing animal, you are a prime target.

I found a few homemade remedies and then upon further research realized that they were equally toxic to the human as the mosquito (so I won’t publish them here…). I did find one home remedy that seemed interesting although I haven’t tried it yet:

“I always rub a little liquid detergent soap and/or canola oil, all over my skin when I’m outside near my compost pile or garden. All soft body insects hate it!”

I also found this site that had tons of info about mosquitos, what attracts them and repellants.

And, of course, many reviews of insect repellants.

One of the many reviews

MY NEXT PURCHASE

I’ve decided to try a repellant called, KONK. The company is based in Florida and if anyone would know about mosquitos, it would be people from Florida… It is all natural and has some very good reviews. I don’t know why I haven’t seen it before… but I haven’t. So, if any of you have any experience with it, please let me know.

From what I could surmise, when the mosquitos are swarming, Konk is the stuff to have in your saddlebag. I wish I had had some of that with me today, for sure. Those buggers were everywhere. It was epic. For me, I don’t ever want to go through that again – nor do I want Finn to be exposed.

So, let me know if you’ve used Konk – or if you have a ‘sure-fire’ remedy for swarming mosquitos.

I will post your information!