Are insects bugging you?

[lindy]

Don't know about anybody else but I seem to be a bug magnet. This time of the year, black flies are the problem around here and, boy, do they ever make me swell up which is a real joy on top of the itching. I heard a medical piece on the news the other night about insect repellants and the like and finally found something that not only am I willing to do but really does work. I really don't like topical repellants - who knows what gets into the bloodstream and causes trouble? - so this was a great idea. 50-100 mg of B-6 a day will make a person smell terrible to any sort of biting bug (including mosquitoes which is why they were doing this piece - West Nile Virus season is coming). I have been taking 25 mg of B-6 a day so I bought a bottle of just B-6 and started to take it yesterday. It's muggy and really buggy here today. I rode the horse this morning and have been working in the garden ever since. The bugs buzz around me and they do land on me but, so far, not one bite! It's annoying to have the bugs zipping around me and landing but I'm willing to put up with that as long as I don't end up a swollen, lumpy, bumpy, itchy mess!

[Bernard]

Interesting. Mosquito season is almost upon us over here. If it hadn't been so dry, we would likely be suffocating with them already.

Mosquitos have always favored the blood of those around me instead of me. I always assumed it was because they smelled like dead animals and I didn't. You are what you eat!

[lindy]

It isn't quite mosquito season here yet but it's going to be a bad one. We've had so much rain that there is standing water along the fence line in the barnyard - the perfect mosquito breeding ground! My husband doesn't get bitten as much as I do and he says that the bugs love to bite me because I'm so sweet (he's really the one who's the sweet one though!). Anyway, the vet warned me that this was going to be a bad mosquito year when the horse got his shots. I had never had him vaccinated for West Nile before but the vet said that even if I never did it again, this was the year to do it. I'm such a worrywort about Dylan that I agreed. He's such a big, strong, healthy beast but then so were my last two horses and they had to be euthanized within four months of each other (Doodle foundered and, after his death, Katie gave up the will to live). I am NOT going through that again if I have anything to say about it!

[howdydave]

Get yourself some Muskol!

I discovered this stuff up in Canada when I was living in a place that has a lot of wetlands. I lived about 100 yards from the swamp.

Muskol was about the only thing that they sold in the drugstore and it's the best insect repellant that I've ever come across! It kept everything away:

• Mosquitos
  Black flies
  Deer Flies
  Horse Flies
  Chiggers
  No-see-ums
  Everything!

You can find it on the internet.

[Bernard]

Does it also repel people?

[lindy]

Certainly hasn't repelled my husband! You have no idea how nice it is to really work my horse, get the two of us all sweaty and really exercised and not to have every bug in the world, wanting a piece of me. This is the first summer in years when I haven't walked around as a swollen, itchy mess. Wish I'd heard about B-6 for this ages ago!!