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Books About Life on a Farm Written Especially for People Who Like to Read! "Highly recommended reading." The Midwest Book Review Reviews & Readers' Comments |
LeAnn R. Ralph Rural Route 2 Author E6689 970th Ave. Colfax, WI 54730 (715) 308-6336 |
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by LeAnn R. Ralph I don't very often sit in my backyard to enjoy a summer sunset. It's not because I don't want to, or that I don't have time, either. I no more settle into a lawn chair to admire the view, and then I receive visitors. Only one or two at first, then a whole swarm. You know, the kind of visitors who make a "bbbbzzzzz" sound in your ear. The kind of visitors who suck your blood so they can lay their eggs. That's right - you guessed it - mosquitoes. A couple of years back, I discovered some enterprising soul had put citronella into candles and lamp oil. According to the manufacturers, burning the citronella candles - or the oil in those cute, little ornamental lamps - will repel mosquitoes, leaving you free to enjoy your backyard. A fine idea, I thought. Unfortunately, I haven't found any citronella candles or lamp oil that will actually do the job. Naturally, I'm quite disappointed. When I first smelled those citronella candles in the garden section of a department store, I had high hopes... Wandering up and down the aisles, looking at garden hoses, gloves, rakes, and lawn ornaments, I began to detect the odor of citronella. When I turned the corner, I discovered the source. Shelves packed tightly with every shape and form of candle, all containing citronella and some of them positively adorable - like the miniature galvanized buckets. Instantly, the spicy, lemony odor of citronella brought back memories from my youth. When I was a kid, Dad used to take me fishing. And one of our favorite fishing spots was the Norton Slough - perhaps one of the finest mosquito breeding grounds anywhere on this earth. (The Norton Slough is about two miles from our farm. It is just one of the many sloughs and marshy areas along the Hay River in this part of west central Wisconsin.) Many fine summer evenings after we had finished the milking, Dad and I gathered our fishing gear and we'd set out for the Slough. I always thought of the Slough as a mysterious and exotic place - a quiet backwater fed by the Hay River, surrounded by trees and brush. Tall grass lining the opposite shoreline. Blue herons flying low over the water. Maybe a muskrat swimming along the bank. The humid summer air redolent with the peculiarly marshy odor of mud and algae. In those days, traversing the banks of the Slough was quite an adventure. Thickets of blackberry briars, oak brush, and perhaps some prickly ash creating a tangle beneath the trees practically requiring a machete to break through. Inching across a log placed over a small creek. An up-and-down-hill path lined with poison ivy. And all the while, trying to keep the fishing poles from becoming entangled in the brush without dropping the tackle box or the can of worms we'd dug from around the barn foundation. At last we'd reach a small, sandy beach - one of my father's favorite fishing places on the Slough. We'd bait our hooks, cast the lines, and then settle down to watch the red-and-white bobbers. In no time at all, we started getting bites - not on our bait - on ourselves. A few mosquitoes would discover our presence. And then they invited all their brothers, sisters and cousins to join in the feast. That's when Dad rummaged around in his old, green tackle box to find his magic bottle of citronella oil. It was a tiny, clear-glass bottle containing pure citronella, an oily saffron-colored liquid. And what a wonderful, heavenly aroma. A few drops rubbed onto bare arms, faces, necks and ears, and presto - the mosquitoes decided to find food elsewhere. Dad's bottle of citronella oil had been in his tackle box for years. The cap was rusty and somewhere along the line, the label had fallen off. But you only needed a few drops, so one small bottle lasted a long, long time. And that's why I had such great expectations for the citronella candles. Dad's oil of citronella worked extremely well to repel mosquitoes, and I had hoped the candles would work, too. Thus far, I haven't noticed the candles do much to deter mosquitoes. But they smell nice - like Dad's old tackle box and summer evenings when we went fishing on the Norton Slough. I suppose I COULD take the citronella candle inside the house and enjoy the aroma there where the mosquitoes can't bother me. After all, I might as well enjoy something. The mosquitoes won't let me watch summer sunsets in my own backyard. |
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