The uglier side of country living....grrrrrr

OK, there is an ugly side to country living as I've alluded to before - BUGS!  And it appears the tiniest ones can bite and leave a welt the size of a quarter and itch like holy H---.  We're   inundated with gnats and noseeum's - who even knew what they were?  Even the guineas seem to be troubled by them and aren't making a dent in their population.  So we have assembled our arsenal of mostly organic solutions and will be attacking them today...

it is W-A-R!!!  My green leanings may actually move to heavy duty insecticdes if these organic solutions don't work.  I love being outside but have to be covered from head to toe - including the bee net over the face. At least I can get things done outside with it but it does take away the pleasure of sitting on the rocking chair sipping wine ---through the face net. We're hoping this is just a short lifecycle for these nuisance bugs - we heard when it gets hot they will go away.  One can only hope.

And while I'm at it the other big irritation is the Siberian Elms.The weather was PERFECT this year creating millions of seeds on every tree. Now, we are surrounded by elm trees at our place. We had very high winds the past couple days, up to 40mph and most of the seeds are now on the ground - literally millions of them.  Guess what germinates almost immediately upon hitting soil?  Boy, do I have a big weeding job - getting rid of the millions of potential trees in the flower beds, in the vegetable beds, in the lawn, everywhere.

On a more positive note, Mark gathered the guinea eggs (we discovered the guineas aren't very good mothers) which had not been tended very well and put them into an incubator.  We'll see if we get baby guineas. Maybe more guineas will help with the gnats and noseeum's.  Grrrrrrrr

Hope you are having a lovely bug free day where you live; and a fun and safe Memorial Day weekend.