Midges - dos and don'ts

I'm offering a few words in this post about our teeny flying friends...

Midge Season in the Highlands is usually mid-May to late September. Even in this period – sometimes, there are none at all. Other times, there are zillions.

Highland midges are teeny-weeny flying insects (wingspan >2mm) and can occur in swarms. They are attracted to mammals by the CO2 that we exhale. At their worst, they can get into your eyes, nose, ears and hair. They feed on blood, and a bite on a human can leave a small red spot which is VERY itchy for two or three days. If you are aware you have been bitten, rubbing Anthisan cream into the bitten area as soon as possible will lessen the irritation.

If badly bitten (this is, you have a lot of bites), over-the-counter anti-histamine tablets such as Piriton may help reduce the itching – but these tablets can cause drowsiness or dizziness in some people, so beware if driving.

In midge season…

DO…

·         Stay indoors on calm and damp (or humid) mornings and evenings.

·         Keep doors and windows closed. It is better to be a bit warm and stuffy than to invite a swarm of midges into your house…!!!

If you HAVE to go out…

·         Use midge repellent on all exposed skin. I favour ‘Jungle Formula’ which comes as a spray, roll-on or lotion, in ‘normal’ or ‘extra’ strength. The ‘extra’ can sting a bit when applying, but it is VERY effective, and remains so for many hours. I understand a product called ‘Smidge’ is also very effective, but I haven’t used it myself. Some people swear by Avon ‘Skin So Soft’ – I am not convinced!

·         Wear long-sleeved tops and long trousers. Tuck your trousers into your socks and keep your collar buttoned up tight. You won’t look silly – everyone else will look the same… If you are going to be outside for a long time, get yourself a midge hood or midge jacket.

·         Keep moving. Midges have a maximum flying speed of about 2mph, so if you keep walking briskly, they can’t keep up with you!

·         Only go out when there is a breeze. Midges can only fly if the wind speed is under about 5mph, so where there is a breeze, you will not be troubled by midges.

·         Keep a can of fly-spray in the car. After getting into your car on a midgy morning/evening, you may find several hundred of them have come in with you. A few puffs of fly spray will eradicate most of them – and they are so tiny, you will never find the bodies.

DON’T…

·         Sit about outside when there is no breeze, especially under trees or close to bushy vegetation.

·         Wear loose clothing – especially a kilt….!!!

·         Leave the bedroom window open overnight.

·         Even THINK about having a BBQ on that warm, quiet evening…

·         And don’t hate midges – they were on the planet before humans!

Man-Caves…

I’ve recently been working in my shed – I refer to the BIG shed at Summer Cottage. (I’m a bit of a shed collector - I also have a scattering of smaller sheds – one at Summer, three at the Barn…)

The BIG shed is brilliant. It was built as an agricultural building. It is very sturdily constructed with a timber frame, externally clad with weatherproofed timber and having a corrugated composite pitched roof. The floor is concrete, which I have covered with recycled carpet.

Internally, it is about 18 feet square. It has a pedestrian door and window to one side, and 7ft wide barn doors to the front. There are a couple of clear plastic panels in the roof which provide internal daylight. The roof leaks a bit in a storm when rainwater is driven upwards by the wind and then drips from inside the ridge. In spite of installing eaves filler and expanding foam, I have never completely cured the leak problem, so now, some strategically placed corrugated plastic panels inside the roof direct any internal drips to non-important places. Otherwise, the shed is dry and well-ventilated.

This shed has a proper electricity supply, with its own consumer unit, several power sockets and plenty of lights. It also has a mains water supply, with an outside tap, and inside, a little ‘ensuite’, with WC and wash basin. (!!!!)  There’s no hot water though….

Lining the insides of the shed I currently have an awful lot of junk, most of which we have accumulated as the result of closing a couple of our holiday lets - and the left-over stuff just came here. My current task is to sort all this out…. Urrrgggh!  Are humans programmed to create and then keep junk…???

Having recently had the kitchen at Lochview replaced, I have recycled the old kitchen, and installed most of the floor and wall units and worktop in the BIG shed. This provides some neat storage space so I can finally untangle the muddled stacks of ‘stuff’, unpack the boxes of junk, get rid of the REALLY useless items, and store the marginally less useless items more tidily, and where they are easily accessible if needed.

There’s still a bit of a way to go, but I feel I am making progress. Even in our busy life – it’s good to have a man-cave!

The BIG shed

BIG shed - side entrance

The ex-Lochview kitchen units in place
I'm not going to re-fit the doors, as it is better to be able to see the contents at a glance

Somewhere to pause when I've had enough of cutting grass...

OK, so the colours don't match -
but how many sheds have a working wc and wash basin...?

Bonkers or brilliant?

As if the weather isn't enough for our gardens and veg plots to cope with - we get a significant number of animal and pest attacks too. I have tried several times to grow brassicas (cabbage-family plants), mostly with poor results due either to a summer storm breaking the plants off at ground level, or root-fly maggots chomping through the roots. And now for good measure, it looks like we have a rabbit or two (or a dozen) moving in... Hmmm...

I chatted the issue through with a keen horticulturalist, who suggested I try plastic bottles. Each brassica seedling is planted with a plastic bottle (with bottom cut off....!!) pushed down over the top. The bottle becomes a mini-greenhouse, and prevents flies or creatures that chew from getting to the young tender plant. The bottle is removed when the plant inside is big and strong enough to (hopefully) resist attacks. Wind will then still be a problem, however.

Indeed, locally, I have been told that if I don't secure the bottles to the ground, I will spend a lot of time gathering them from around the hedgerows...

Anyway - I'm giving it a try. The empty space in the bed is for broccoli. The day before planting-out, a slug took a fancy to my broccoli seedlings and munched its way through every one of them, so I have re-planted seeds, and will hope they come up quickly. We might get good enough weather for them to catch up with everyone else!

Note the bluebells and gorse in my 'wild' garden -
both flowering at their best just now

Contemplating Murder...

It was about half past four this morning, and I was lying in bed having murderous thoughts. No - Sue was quite safe, and so was Cupar. The target of my ire was outside...

Now I'm all for nature, and the dawn chorus is something of a favourite. So being gently woken at the first grey light of the day by what sounds like several thousand birds all chirping and tweeting and melodically singing is really not a problem. Sadly, just one feathered friend stands far apart from the rest, and also seems to be able to drown-out every other tweet, twitter, chirrup and cheep...

CUC-KOO...!!    CUC-KOO...!!    CUC-KOO...!!

I realise this particular species is somewhat musically challenged, and in the interest of being fair, I'd be happy for it to join in the dawn choral performance for a minute or two, but this one went on, and on... and on........ and on.......... for at least an HOUR!

I am happy to report that I did eventually drift back into some kind of sleep, so this particular individual has survived to cuc and koo another day - and the contemplated murder was not committed.

On a brighter note (pun intended) 😉 we are aware of a very strong local population of cuckoos this spring. There have been years when we thought they were in serious decline, but this year, they seem to be everywhere, though conservation-wise, they continue to be a 'red-listed' species. Locally, they favour taking over the nests of the sedge warblers. I hope this doesn't mean we'll have fewer sedge warblers next year, as their song truly is a delight to hear!