Column: I'll die with the blackfly a-picking my bones

Oh, how we longed for summer during the relentless cold winter we have endured. Statistically, February was the coldest February on record. Stats don’t lie. So now summer is here.

Hurray! Well, maybe not ... we went to our cottage recently, and as happy as we were to be there, going outside for any reason meant running the gauntlet of black flies and oh yes – mosquitoes.

These annoying insects hold us captive for far too much time every summer. Yes, I know there are sprays to use which give us a few minutes to get some chores done outside.

It’s disappointing and frustrating, but then -30 C is not fun either, I have to remind myself. The power of these insects to control our summer activities makes me wonder if they’re singing, “We’re coming to take you away, haha.”

The most exasperating battle with a mosquito is once the lights are out and we want to go to sleep. If you have experienced that, you’ll know what I mean. They buzz and buzz around and around. So – we have to turn on the lights, get out of bed and attempt to kill the perpetrator and will be able to sleep only when we have done so.

So we persevere. Swimming, kayaking, canoeing are the perfect activities – no bugs there. When a welcome breeze wraps around us, we get some relief from blackflies and mosquitoes and we enjoy it.

I don’t appreciate bugs devouring my ankles or any exposed bit of skin. What I really hate is managing to kill one and having my blood spurt out of the body of this little pest. It’s proof that before I got him – he got me.

If we don’t close our car doors quickly enough, some will get in to annoy us, and that could even be dangerous as we attempt to kill the pesky things. It’s most distracting for the driver to have them flying around in the vehicle.

It’s difficult to be alert while you’re watching to see where they are going to land. We had just two in the car recently and one dared to land on my purse, so I quickly gave it the death-blow and sent it to its hereafter, wherever that is.

But that still left one to harass us. My husband’s hand annihilated the second one. Sigh, finally we were able to drive home peacefully.

There is one fly that I find magical and that is the firefly. I have just discovered it is not an insect at all, but a beetle. Firefly light can be yellow, light red, green or orange.

I have wonderful memories of our children trying to catch them at camp and put them in a jar with a lid. The girls were fascinated by the twinkling light.

I don’t remember how long we kept them, but it was great fun watching our children chase them in the dark.

Erna de Burger-Fex is a writer and retired teacher.