It's been a whole new intro to flora and fauna. I grew up in the countryside, but that was in a completely different environment, a desert. Imagine my surprise the first time I heard a moose bugle from the forest here, or the time I ran outside to find out what all the racket was coming from the sky. It was flock after flock of Canada geese, flying across our bay on their way south for the winter.
Then there was the morning this family of deer showed up outside the kitchen window when I was eating breakfast. Cheeky things.
You know what local wildlife we weren't prepared for? Flies. Lots and lots of lots of flies. There are so many flies. So damn many flies.
Like I said: I grew up in a farming area, so we were surrounded by cows and pigs and horses. I know a thing or two about the relationship of flies and manure. But these flies are something different. These are swarm flies, and they have been seeping into our house from who knows where since early September.
It is now mid November. All of the windows and doors have been shut since the weather in Finland turned frosty in October. We plugged up all the ceiling lamp holes with paper. Yet still, every time we arrive at the house, light the fires, and the heat surges past 17 C / 62 F, flies start appearing and swarming around our windows like something from a horror film.
They knock against the windows and celings. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. We try to sleep and all we hear is "buzz buzz buzz buzz buzz buzz."
At the same time I am trying to sleep through all this buzz buzz buzz, I read in The New York Times about the so-called Insect Apocalypse, how the world as we know it is doomed because of a drastic decrease in insects, a staple of the earth's ecosystem. So I should be happy about our flies, right? It would be so very reassuring if it weren't so very annoying.
Internet searches say these flies are harmless. They don't spread disease because they don't do the disgusting things that other flies do. They don't get into food or garbage and lay eggs. They just want to be warm.
I have tried to have a charitable attitude toward our flies, but I have to admit, they are driving me crazy. I have ruined two flyswatters and gone through countless rolled up magazines chasing after them. The dead fly count is literally in the thousands. Our walls and floors are covered with their carnage.
Where are they coming from? How do they get in? When will they go away? I have questions. So many questions.
This, I promise, will be the only blog post I ever write about flies.