No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers’ dirty looks. Well, yes—vacation has begun. I will not have the entire summer off, alas, but I do have until Sunday. Then I will be ten weeks working on a tree farm.
But until then a friend and I will be in the forests of Arkansas. We are taking only the bare essentials: Bible, tents, guns and Merlot. We will be meandering a bit on the Ozark Highlands Trail.
Until then, be well.
4 Comments;
Dont forget the bear grease. When I was in Canada way back when they sold an insect repellent that was made out of bear grease.It smelled so bad that even scavengers wouldnt come near,but it also kept every flying and crawling insect away.
Have a great time! The ticks are out in force since it has been so wet, so use plenty of spray.
Dear Mike:
Bear grease? Ack! I smell bad enough out there. On the trail during my 25 years of backpacking around Central and South America my carcass would assume a definite odor, an odd farrago of old sweat, new sweat, crushed insects, spilled food, bug repellent, suntan oil, rotting vegetation, cigarettes, rum and blood. Not exactly Paco Rabanne.
Here in the USA it is not as bad as all that. I can actually go three days without drastic measures, but after that all bets are off. Baby wipes help, as does washing as well as I can in streams and such.
As for the bugs, 100 percent DEET is the best thing going. It works but does dissolve plastic stuff. If the deranged tree huggers—sorry for the redundancy—get wind of it they might try to ban it as they did DDT. Then I would have to use your bear grease or perhaps smear myself with basil or parsley—whatever those environmentalist idiots—sorry for the redundancy—deem acceptable.
Dear Tim:
You got that right! The critters were everywhere, as ubiquitous as lesbians at a NOW rally. I had 25 percent DEET spray but could have used something more powerful. As it is the ticks came home with me in the pack and everything else—ants too. I spent yesterday and this morning exterminating them all.
Still, all things considered, it was not as bad as during one of my first forays into the forests of Honduras. Then I had 103 ticks on me. Not pleasant. I stacked them in my cooking pot and burned them to death. Wee.