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Old Pharts Club
- Thread starter The Cromwell
- Start date
I have never seen so many fucking flies in my lifetime. Between Lannie and I, we have swatted several hundred today and there seems to be a never ending supply. Are we living in that old novel, Lord of the Flies?
Usually a sign of an early winter..........
Oh I hope not... summer just got here. We have had lots of early winters and have never had this many flies. Noy here or anywhere else I have lived.Usually a sign of an early winter..........
Only thing I can think of, besides something dead around the house
They are attacking us and the animals in all buildings (house, barns, shop, etc.) and even just walking through the yard.
Weird.....can't think of anything else.
No rain today and, if I remember right, about 80 degrees. I did a lot of mowing but had to stop about every 10 minutes and unclog the deck exit. Seems that the grass is still pretty wet.
I hate to bail out on you so early, but I gotta crash now. Yak at ya later.
I'm doing the same, need to wake EARLY tomorrow....!
It's all the rain, and the fact that the Bobcat has been out of commission all summer, so NONE of the manure piles have been moved, and because of the deep swamp in front of the cow barn, I haven't been able to even clean out the cow stall yet. It's a fermenting mess in there, and all the poop piles, not having been turned, are just breeding flies by the millions. There are clouds of the little hatchlings everywhere, and they can't ALL live in and around the barns, they have to go somewhere. So they go to the yards, and the other buildings, including the house.
We'd still have a fly problem even IF Bob had been functional, just because of the wet weather and everything rotting. The mosquitoes are also numerous this summer, because they've had lots of little puddles and damp spots to breed in. It's an insect paradise here.
The chickens are happy because they have lots of bugs to eat, but they have no hope of keeping up with the vast numbers of flies, mosquitoes, and other six-legged critters.
Forgot about that, Lannie.....It's all the rain, and the fact that the Bobcat has been out of commission all summer, so NONE of the manure piles have been moved, and because of the deep swamp in front of the cow barn, I haven't been able to even clean out the cow stall yet. It's a fermenting mess in there, and all the poop piles, not having been turned, are just breeding flies by the millions. There are clouds of the little hatchlings everywhere, and they can't ALL live in and around the barns, they have to go somewhere. So they go to the yards, and the other buildings, including the house.
We'd still have a fly problem even IF Bob had been functional, just because of the wet weather and everything rotting. The mosquitoes are also numerous this summer, because they've had lots of little puddles and damp spots to breed in. It's an insect paradise here.
Hopefully Bob will be back on the farm soon.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Bob will return home by the end of the month (kinda hard to type with fingers crossed). 
Prolly take a month to play catch-up with Bob.....then winter is right around the corner...........I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Bob will return home by the end of the month (kinda hard to type with fingers crossed).
With a brand new engine, it will probably not take as long to do all those chores as it did in the past... I hope.
Sunny, around 84, pretty windy. Mowed my ass off getting rid of same nasty weeds in the tree rows. The bouncing made my back hurt -- a lot. I am barely sitting up at the moment.
Need to get Bob out there and back-drag the soil-weeds-grass so its a little more level.
Given the amount of acreage with bumps and all the things on my "to do" list that have yet to be started, I should get around to that leveling job by... oh, A.D. 2030 ...
We got lucky in the prairie dawg area... none to speak of, given the neighboring ranchers have thousands (maybe it's our huge cat population), but we have rabbits, hares, and a few smaller rodents. The ant hills are a problem and I have yet to find something to kill those guys without poisoning the rest of our critters.
Those fire-ants?
Maybe. There are at least three or four different types here. Small individual holes with tiny black ants. Large areas devoid of grass (their nest colony kill the grass roots) which start as something a foot across and years later can be six feet in diameter, but relatively flat. Those ants are typically larger and are colored black and red. Never been bitten by them though. The ones that annoy me most are piles of soil about a foot or two in diameter and up to a foot high. Those are the red ants. When they bite, it burns, but luckily I seldom get bit.
Yep, those are the ones I'm talking about, they're really prevalent in Texas Florida and some other states, those sobs will attack....and leave welts on your legs that feel similar to a Yellow Jacket sting
Yup, that's what the ones in the hills look like.
Speaking of yellow jackets... the ones who live here are pretty nice. Neither of us have ever been stung by them even though they are everywhere. We also have lots of honey bees and bumble bees. I haven't been stung by any kind of bee since 1978 and that was because I ran into the south end of a north-bound bee on my motorcycle doing about 80 mph. I'm sure he had no intention of stinging, but his ass end got buried in my throat.
Speaking of yellow jackets... the ones who live here are pretty nice. Neither of us have ever been stung by them even though they are everywhere. We also have lots of honey bees and bumble bees. I haven't been stung by any kind of bee since 1978 and that was because I ran into the south end of a north-bound bee on my motorcycle doing about 80 mph. I'm sure he had no intention of stinging, but his ass end got buried in my throat.
I run into a lot of those africanized bees while working. They may look like honey bees, but they have a real bad attitude.
Are those the ones that migrated north from south/central America?
Yeah, they will be in your neck of the woods soon....If they're not already.
I was looking at a chart how far north they've migrated, incredible.
Haven't seen anything new and different yet....
OK, it's a day.
Have a good one. Catch ya later.
With a brand new engine, it will probably not take as long to do all those chores as it did in the past... I hope.
I'm sure that will be true, considering that most of the time spent "on Bob" in the past has been time getting the damned thing STARTED. Trickle charging for a day, or most of a day, then putting heater on it to warm it up enough to start... it's going to be wonderful to just go out, get in, turn the key and VROOM! it starts right up! I hope.
Regarding the ants, we don't have fire ants, but the red ants we do have bite if you disturb them and just stand there and let them crawl up your pants legs.
Like the ones we had in Central Oregon. Fire ants are another thing altogether, and I'm glad we don't have those. And Rich, you're thinking of the wasps, they're not yellowjackets. I've never seen a yellowjacket here. Those are nasty, too, and will chase you for no reason. These wasps we have are pretty calm, but I still don't like it when they come in the house. And so far, no dangerous "honeybees" of the African variety. I know we bitch a lot about the cold in the winter, but it DOES keep the insect population from blowing way out of proportion. A lot of the bugs that other people have to deal with just can't survive here, so we don't have them. 
Yes, the majority of yellow/black bee types here are wasps, but I have seen yellow jackets here too. More than the wasps, the yellow jackets "buzz" me, but I still have not been stung by them. The wasps tend to hang around the buildings (they use to have nests in the house attic and in the homestead cabin) and I see most of the yellow jackets out near the cedar trees when I was mowing out there. Maybe the weeds out there have flowers they like. I don't know.
That's nice to know. I looked them up and I agree. The ones in the "hill" type nests look like the pictures Dale posted last night, but they are not as aggressive as the Google results.
Rained like hell this morning, which was not in the forecast. The forecast said thunderstorms this afternoon/evening, which did not happen. SNAFU.
Was one hot humid sob here, and we didn't get done working until almost 4:00 this afternoon....which is way to long working in this heat.
Speaking about Yellow Jackets, I'm not sure if we have them here in the desert, I've never seen any, but I've sure run across a LOT of those africanized honey bees...which are just as adamant to sting as Yellow Jackets.....
I remember well getting laced by those yellow jackets when I was young, we used to do everything known to boy-kind to kill them, I guess that's why they liked to sting us so much....
I remember well getting laced by those yellow jackets when I was young, we used to do everything known to boy-kind to kill them, I guess that's why they liked to sting us so much....
I do remember being stung by those bastards when I was a kid, but like you said, kids tend to do stupid things that put us in line to become targets. Since I developed common sense, it hasn't happened.
Me either, when I get hit is when I'm usually near the top of a ladder, or happen to put the ladder right below or next to those stinging bastards, then all hell breaks loose....
Been running into a LOT more of those africanized bees the last few years. They are just as ruthless as yellow jackets...they'll sting until your not breathing any longer.
As I understand these imports, the longer they are here, the more they will cross/interbreed, which, at least theoretically, should tone them down. However, gawd only knows how long that might take. My guess is that they will never get up here because, being tropical, they won't be able to survive our winters.
Probably not, since the winters are now lasting about 8 months.....
It was too wet to do more mowing, so I spent a couple hours in the shop, mixing a couple gallons of gas and oil (50:1) for one of the weed whackers (another engine with problems -- Lannie suggested I take an online course in small engine repair and it might be worth it), then charged the batteries on another weed whacker, then did some repairs on my electric pruner (an 8" chain saw at the end of a pole). When that was done, I whacked the weeds around the house and garage, which really stressed my upper arms/shoulders (obviously the rotator cuff issue is not completely gone).
Hahhahah....take an online course on small engines........
