Get your Canoe!...The River is Up!

Sam told me first thing this morning that the river was up and we would be able to go in a canoe. I was a little bit suspicious. I know about half and inch of rain had fallen over night but canoing seemed wildly unlikely. Once the sun was up (Sam is an early riser) I glanced up the field to the Water Meadows and, sure enough, the river was up. This needs to be put in perspective...
For 36 of the past 38 months the water meadows have been lush green pasture. In summer the grass went a shade of hay and in the winter the wild birds have found it to be a haven; out of the wind and with hedges stuffed with berries. It is only in the past two months that we have had sufficient rain to turn it back to water meadow. The stream flows off the top of the hills between two villages. The high ground is clay covered, but as it runs off the hills it comes over the chalk, where is starts to soak in. It will soak in until the chalk becomes saturated.
The picture shows the river as it starts its journey down the hill. It has come from about one mile away, and about 70m vertically up a very gentle slope. Watching the slow but inexorable progress of the stream making its way down the valley keeps the children entranced for ages. Then they have the opportunity of building dams and bridge for a couple of days if it does not dry up again and disappear until the next downpour.
So much for my canoe trip!

The Autumn Air Show

Living in a remote house with nothing but fields on all side sounds like the perfect idill. It certainly has its up sides but there are one or two downsides as well. Not all remote places have the same problems or the same benefits.
Every autumn, just as the temperature begins to drop and the chestnut trees start to turn from their dark summer green to the beautiful ocres and russet colours, we have the local air show. This is not the Duxford extravaganza. This is the Insect Airshow. Our bees seem to have been well looked after but the strays and wild bees have smelt the honey that we extracted and are out looking for it, so they can rob it for their own winter stores. This in its self is not too much of a problem. One can dodge the odd bee in the house (I hesitate to swat or spray them now I am in the apiarist fraternity). I can also tell that they are not my bees from my hive... you do get to know them.

No. The real Insect Airshow appears on warm sunny days in autumn. One side of our house faces in each direction. The south side on a warm sunny afternoon changes colour.
It grows darker as the number of small files bask in the hot sun. These are the dreaded cluster flies. They are looking for a place to hibernate and in rural areas they tend to creep into crevices in houses.
The roof space is full of them.
The windows facing south have 100s of dead flies on the window cills. They can squeeze through the tiniest gaps between the window and the frame. They creep into the folds of the curtains. They die in their 1000's all over the house.
But the worst place is in the bathrooms. The lights are a recessed type, and which puncture the ceiling into the roof space. Most of the light is aimed down wards, but there is enough light in the roof space to attract the squadrons of cluster flies. They try to creep through the gap into the bathroom but nearly all get frazzeled by the bulb.
The numbers are so large that the bathroom eventually becomes dark. (The picture shows just a few hours collection when the light was only on for about half and hour.) So I have to pull out the bulbs and scrape out thousands of flies into the bin. Then clean the glass on the light which has been coated with brown cooked fly ointment.

Cluster flies are strange:
They do not eat.
They are not attracted to theose sticky fly papers.
They are not attracted to ultra violet fly zappers.
If you leave them for a day or two they leave an unpleasant oily smell and stain.

Last year I purchased a couple of gallons of persistent insecticide called Protctor "C". This is excellent stuff. You spray it onto a surface and it will kill any bug that walks over it for about 2 months. The only trouble is that I have to spray the inside and outside of all south and west facing windows and much of the roof space.

I also spray it onto the bricks of the south facing outside walls. It can be used in kitchens and is harmless to mammals. (It does kill fish, however).

The other thing you need is a batch of new bags for the vacuum cleaner. It is a once a day job, every evening after the sun has gone down. I must have collected several gallons of fly carcasses by now!
At least they will be gone when the first frost arrives! I can't wait for it!