OMG....I got one in my ear!

We thought we were fortunate to get our favorite camp site for the second week of May. Not realizing that it was open due to others knowing more of that camp site than us. We soon found out why it was open but I think we have a nice little trick for next time.

You see our favorite camp site has a swift moving stream close by. That swift moving stream is a perfect breading ground for black flies. So, on our last day there we ended up leaving a bit early because we were being swarmed by them. I didn't know what the bug was at first. I knew it wasn't a mosquito so I set my mind to finding out what it was and how to keep the horrid biting bugs away from us.

The first thing I did was search the internet for flying, biting bugs in Pennsylvania. I was lucky to find a web site with a long list of pictures to search through. What I was looking for was (in my mind) a cross between a bee, a fly and a mosquito. It didn't take long for me to find this picture.

Black flies need swift moving, non-polluted water with lots of oxygen for egg, larva and pupa growth. One of the ways to control a black fly population is to dam up these swift moving streams so the larva can't breathe and die.

Most female black flies need a blood meal for egg production. Some species will only bite one type of host, some will only bite mammals, some only birds and some will bite just about anything. This is why May and June are not the best time to be doing anything in the woods near a swift moving stream in Pennsylvania.

Now that I have a name I can find a way to keep them away... I thought. We used DEET spray and had citronella candles but they didn't seem to work very well. In my searches I found that not all black flies are put off by either. It seems that when they are determined to bite you they will ignore the DEET and citronella. Just ask Alraune. He feel asleep in his camp chair and woke up with his legs looking like a small child took a red marker to his legs. I even ended up with a bite in my ear. Let me tell you that wasn't fun at all.

By the end of that camping trip we did discover that Aloe is WONDERFUL for black fly bites. I had a bottle of it along because I sunburn easy for the first few months of the summer and it's wonderful for that. Alraune got an idea and read the back of the bottle, grinned at his good luck than slathered it all over his legs. Instant relief. It has to be reapplied from time to time but it really helps the itching and the bites heal much faster.

We didn't discover a way to keep the biting flies away until a day hiking trip 3 weeks later. Again we brought DEET, Aloe (half knowing we'd not keep all the bugs away) and (almost as if I knew) Patchouli incense sticks. Alraune has taken patchouli powder along for camping trips before. I saw how it worked on bugs and I thought I'd take a chance. I'm so glad I did.

We sprayed ourselves down with DEET right after getting out of the car and headed down the path. We were fine for about an hour or so, then the bugs started to get bad again so we reapplied the DEET... No good. I was going to save the patchouli incense sticks for when we sat down to eat but on a whim I had Alraune pull one out and light it. It worked much better than either of us thought it would. The rest of our hike I kept one burning and we didn't need to use the DEET again. I even tried it a few times on a small swarm of gnats to see what would happen. Each time I did all the gnats hastily left the area.

Part of me wonders if the patchouli incense worked so well because the bugs are getting used to DEET and citronella in the same way that some bacteria are now becoming immune to antibiotics. We plan on doing more experiments with incense sticks. We have two other kinds and wonder if it's just the non-typical smell that is keeping the bugs away or just the patchouli smell.

We have an overnight hike planned in a few days. The camp site we decided on is very close to a swift flowing stream most likely loved by black flies. We're going to take along our normal “get you gone” bug repellents but I would like to see if the patchouli incense sticks work alone. I'll let you know how it works out.

Dreaming of Butterflies,
Chrysanthemum

Naked Mountain PA Mid-State Trail Hike

It all started with the pudding...

On Thursday May 22, 2014 Chrysanthemum and I set out to hike a section of the Pennsylvania Mid-State Trail, running over Naked Mountain, between White Deer Creek Road and Cooper Mill Road (just off of Spruce Run Road). We began our "trip" at the trailhead just west of campsite #3 in Bald Eagle State Forest around 4:30pm and headed south.

It was pretty easy going at first. Before long, we came to a large stream with a well-built foot bridge and a very pleasant campsite on the otherside. I suppose it would make for a very delightful camping experience along the trail and I definetly have my sights set on having that experience someday in the near future; however, we continued on, anxious to discover the trail before us.

Nearly immediately the trail began to head up the mountain, which was quite a long journey – the majority of our trip. The trail wound uphill for quite sometime before coming to its first memorable landmark: an underground spring. It was really quite awesome to walk over the rocks and hear the water rushing beneath us.

Near the top of the spring we found a great spot for sampling the water. It was excellent, just as water should be - tasteless! We hiked on, up to the mountaintop, and I decided, since it was a day in which we had just had a thunderstorm, that now would be a perfect time to tell Chrysanthemum about my experience being caught in a thunder and lightening storm on the top of a mountain. I will share that story with you...

I was hiking the OLP (Old Loggers' Path) and had just reached a mountaintop when a thunderstorm rolled in. The trail wound around the mountaintop for quite sometime, so really I had no direction I could go to get off the top of the mountain quickly. I decided to keep going forward, but my dumb luck brought me closer and closer to the very peak of the mountain. During all of this the winds whipped and branches were falling everywhere, and then the lightening strikes started.

I was getting really worried as I was quickly becoming really close to the height of the tallest trees and the storm just kept on getting worse. I started to look around for some place to take shelter when suddenly a lightening bolt struck a tree probably no more than fifty feet from me (I kid you not). Once that happened I started walking along in a crotched position and looking for the third tallest tree in the vicinity. I found that tree and crotched under it for the remainder of the storm.

Now, let me tell you my logic behind the third tallest tree... I figured that lightening was likely to hit the tallest tree in my immediate area so I didn't want to be there, and I didn't want to take a chance on the second tallest tree being struck, so I decided to hide under the third tallest and get lower than it. I don't know if it was smart or not, and luckily I didn't have to find out. I like to tell myself that at least I did something rather than nothing, and at least I put some rational thought into it even if my logic was ultimately faulty.

In any event, I didn't get struck by lightening and one of my mottos still stands: always try to be third. Why third? It is a survival of the fittest type thing. Number one and number two are always in the sights of somebody or something, and they are always taking the brunt of blows and face the most stresses, but nobody ever cares about third place. At third you are just close enough to the top to influence things, but just low enough to stay off the radar, and you are still strong enough to beat back the competition. So third is where you want to be if you want to survive for a very very long time.

Anyway, we reached the top of Naked Mountian about two hours into our hike and needed to make a decision, as daylight would be completely gone in another two hours. Either we would turn around and go back the way we came, possibly doing some night hiking on the trail, or we would go forward and probably hit the road at the other end of the trail segment we were hiking before nightfall, and then we could hike the road back to the car in the dark.

We decided to go forward and take the road back as we wanted to see more and not repeat what we had seen, plus we were both more tired and it was likely that we would fair better on the road as it was much easier terrain although it was a longer walk. So we walked on, still looking for a decent spot to sit down and eat our long overdue lunch.

We crossed the mountaintop and started to head down the other side, which was a very steep southernly decent. The whole time we were starving, but still in our outside world mindset, so we didn't stop because we were looking for the perfect place to sit down (which doesn't happen too often in the wilderness). Finally, I decided I had to have something to eat and I broke out a pudding, which is when it all began...

The pudding hit my tongue and was extremely sweet. I complained to Chrysanthemum that it tasted way too sweet, and then we realized that it was because we were starving and our bodies were craving the sugar for energy, so we determined we had to eat soon, and eat some real food. Neither of us had eaten all day, we were most assuredly starving!

It couldn't have been more than ten minutes later that we said, "screw this!", and threw a blanket down right beside the trail so we could stop and eat. We ate like ravenous pigs and got food all over ourselves. Chrysanthemum reached into my pack and got out some hoagies we took along for our day hike (bad idea if you get oil on your hoagie, btw). The hoagies were squished and soggy and Chrysanthemum couldn't tell whose hoagie was whose.

She opened the first hoagie, looked it over and determined it was mine, so she handed it to me. I immediately tore into the sandwich and about one second later she said, "No. I gave you mine." Immediately, I said, "uh-oh!" through a mouthful of hoagie, and then handed her back a little more than half a footlong hoagie. Chrysanthemum just looked at me and said, "Holy crap! Is there any left?"

"I'm sorry.", I said. "You can't do that. Don't hand me food and say: 'Here eat this,' and then turn around and try to take it back because it is pretty much already gone at that point."

"I see that," she said. Despite the snafu, we devoured our food and then trekked on.

Before long we were down the mountain and headed toward a stream. We stopped at another nicely constructed bridge and determined we had a half hour more of sunlight and then probably another half hour of twilight. Chrysanthemum and I left the spot and started up another mountain hoping that the road we were searching for was on or near the top.

It took us quite some time to make it up the mountain as Chrysanthemum was having some issues, but we made it to a tower at the top of the mountain just as it was getting too dark to walk without light, and luckily there was the road.

The tower was eery and it most certainly did not belong in such a wonderful and wild environment. It made strange alien noises and hums, beeps, and clicks. I swear it even began beeping and picked up pace as an aircraft flew overhead. It was like something out of a sci-fi movie where the aliens were secretly broadcasting signals. It was truly weird!

We got to the road, flipped on our headlamps and then hiked another four hours back to the the car. We had a blast! The Pennsylvania Mid-State Trail (MST) is definitely a very nice wilderness hike, especially over Naked Mountain, and I would recommend it to anyone.

Peace,

Alraune