Those little buggers can see me coming from 50 yards away.
Yesterday I got up early and went to a friend's house/farm/ranch to help him harvest his grapes. I do this every year, sometimes a couple of times a year. I usually wear jeans and boots and spray the hell out of them with Permanone. This year for some reason I forgot. It's been so hot I put on my usual working garb of shorts and tennis shoes and off I went.
There's usually about 8 or 10 of us. We get there about 6:30 and have a light continental breakfast and then go to work. We only had 3 rows of black Loire grapes to cut and the harvest wasn't as heavy as usual so it didn't take too long. We hauled over 800 pounds of grapes up to the house and had a break ... breakfast casserole and tamales with beer and wine. We then started feeding the grapes into "the machine" which is a lot better than stomping them in the bath. It's a hand cranker and it pulps the grapes and skins and removes the stalks and stems. The pulp or "must" you store until the actual wine making process begins. When we finished pulping all the grapes we had some more cold cuts and cheese with more beer and wine. All in all, it was a fun morning.
All that didn't take too long. I was home just after noon. A quick nap and I was back outside pottering around. I came in, got cleaned up, ate dinner and sat down to watch the Olympics. About 11 o'clock the first tingling began and the itch got worse and worse. It was a miserable nights sleep. This morning my lower legs were covered in the beginning eruptions. I am so allergic to those little bastards. So I'm getting ready for 2 or 3 weeks of pure misery. The sad thing is that I just healed from an attack of the buggers from my neighbor's place about a month ago.
I ought to just stay home because I spray the hell out of my place and usually never have a problem but set foot on anybody else place or even at the farm and I know that I'm asking for trouble unless I spray my pants with Permanone. It's going to be a long miserable summer.
I know that God has a plan for all his creatures but I just want to know where the hell chiggers fit in to it. I hate to say it but the Good Lord may have screwed up there.
Is there any place in the United States that doesn't have chiggers? I may give serious thought to moving.
Yesterday I got up early and went to a friend's house/farm/ranch to help him harvest his grapes. I do this every year, sometimes a couple of times a year. I usually wear jeans and boots and spray the hell out of them with Permanone. This year for some reason I forgot. It's been so hot I put on my usual working garb of shorts and tennis shoes and off I went.
There's usually about 8 or 10 of us. We get there about 6:30 and have a light continental breakfast and then go to work. We only had 3 rows of black Loire grapes to cut and the harvest wasn't as heavy as usual so it didn't take too long. We hauled over 800 pounds of grapes up to the house and had a break ... breakfast casserole and tamales with beer and wine. We then started feeding the grapes into "the machine" which is a lot better than stomping them in the bath. It's a hand cranker and it pulps the grapes and skins and removes the stalks and stems. The pulp or "must" you store until the actual wine making process begins. When we finished pulping all the grapes we had some more cold cuts and cheese with more beer and wine. All in all, it was a fun morning.
All that didn't take too long. I was home just after noon. A quick nap and I was back outside pottering around. I came in, got cleaned up, ate dinner and sat down to watch the Olympics. About 11 o'clock the first tingling began and the itch got worse and worse. It was a miserable nights sleep. This morning my lower legs were covered in the beginning eruptions. I am so allergic to those little bastards. So I'm getting ready for 2 or 3 weeks of pure misery. The sad thing is that I just healed from an attack of the buggers from my neighbor's place about a month ago.
I ought to just stay home because I spray the hell out of my place and usually never have a problem but set foot on anybody else place or even at the farm and I know that I'm asking for trouble unless I spray my pants with Permanone. It's going to be a long miserable summer.
I know that God has a plan for all his creatures but I just want to know where the hell chiggers fit in to it. I hate to say it but the Good Lord may have screwed up there.
Is there any place in the United States that doesn't have chiggers? I may give serious thought to moving.
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