Last night, the first of the “flood flies” came. These are termite queens and fertile male termites on their “nuptial flight,” triggered by the first rains after the dry season. The purpose of this flight is to mate and form more termite colonies; these critters digest cellulose…in order words, they like to eat wooden structures including buildings and decaying wooden matter. So, you could consider them a pest or just part of the eco-system.
These flood flies start swarming in the evening, mostly around houses. They are attracted to light and will get into every nook and cranny of your house, shedding their wings as they come in. They do no bite but have a habit of crawling all over everything, including people and they just get really annoying. Before we sealed up our bedroom, we would have the flood flies crawling on us all night in bed. In the morning, the inside of the house would always be a scene of devastation with literally thousands of wings everywhere. It is a huge cleaning job; in earlier years when I was armed with only a mere broom, it would take me at least 2 weeks to clean up the whole mess. But now, I have my Eureka…thank God for that!
Anyway, I referred to them as the “First” flood flies; usually there is a test run with the first May rains before they come out en masse. Gnome says there should be a lottery for guessing the Flood Fly Day because it can happen anywhere from the the 1st of May to the 31st of May, but always in May! I am waiting with great trepidation, armed and dangerous with my trusty yellow vacuum cleaner! Gnome does not feel so negatively towards these blighters and in fact views them as a potential source of food. He says that one of these days (this means NEXT year…he does not procrastinate) he will make special nets to catch the flood flies, pack them all in a bucket and make miso out of them.
Today we were anticipating another rainy day which meant staying indoors. Gnome had already warned me to keep out of trouble since it was also the full moon and from our experience as medical doctors, the full moon was always a day for complete and utter chaos in hospital. So, Gnome urged me to keep busy and I tried…it was touch and go a few times with mood swings and chaos but we managed to get through it. By the way…we try to avoid making soap on the full moon because it never turns out right. One time, the soap over-heated and exploded into a foaming mess over the counter-top! What a clean-up…never again!
Today, in an effort to keep busy, I roasted brown rice in the oven for 3 hours….every 15 to 20 minutes I had to bring out the rice to stir it around. The brown rice was roasted to a “chocolate malt” and will be used in the flavouring of beer. This will give a chocolatey, maltiness and caramel-like taste to beer…Mmmm…yum!
So far, so good. The internet just went down for 4 hours this afternoon which isn’t too wildly chaotic! We are going to bed early!!
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