Under the Wire

Fall is finally here. I believe I like fall better than any other time of the year. Cooler days, fall colors and weeds quit growing. It is hard to find much wrong with fall except for one thing. Flies. Flies, of course, move inside your house in the fall. Somewhere there is a fly travel journal.

Written right there on the first tiny page are the words, “At the first sign of fall all flies shall leave the manure piles, barns, backs of all bulls, any candy the kids have dropped in the yard and move immediately into the nearest human occupied dwelling.” The fly journal goes on to say, “All members of the fraternal order of the fly should turn to page 34 of this manual for directions to the secret passage ways established by FOF that allow free and unrestricted access to absolutely every home ever constructed. These pages are, of course, printed in special code. FOF members will need to use eyes number 14 and 763 to read this code.” They do this so we humans will never learn their secrets. Flies are smart. The truth is, I kind of like flies.

I will admit the previous sentence may have never been written before. Who, other than a toad, likes flies? Perhaps a fly-oologist, if there is such a person, likes them. I’m not sure about that, though.

I am sort of fond of these nasty flying bugs because they make my horses tired. In the spring before flies come out, my faithful steeds are plumb disagreeable. All winter they have stood around doing basically nothing except wait for me to carry feed to them. As new grass begins to appear, they get fat, sassy and generally uncooperative. Again in the fall, when all the flies have moved into my house, their fun loving good nature returns. During the summer fly months, however, they have an entirely different demeanor. An entire day spent stomping and swishing away flies is darn near as good as a 10 mile ride. It wears them out. Anytime, day or night during the summer months you are going to have a nice calm, tired horse to ride. I don’t always have the time to ride my horses 10 miles before I need them to behave. Let the flies do it.

Those who will call me cruel probably keep their mounts covered in insecticides to ward off the pests. God gave ‘em tails, folks, not DDT. Yep, give me a good fly filled warm summer day to take the edge off my horses anytime. It sure beats getting bucked off! The problem is, in the fall, I’m too tired from swatting flies in the house to ride my horses very much.