Fleeing the Pests

Uncle OwenRanching is beset with problems.Too little rain and the grass doesn’t grow and the cattle don’t have enough to eat.Too much? Well apart from the obvious, flooding, there are the mosquitos.Sometimes . . . well, I’ll let my Uncle Owen tell you about it . . .
The year of 1925 and ’26 was extremely wet. We had something over twenty inches of rain fall in just two or three months—highly unusual in our area. On our leased land, I remember of an evening, the cattle would scent a breeze which was coming and move against it just as fast they could, even though it may only be three or four miles an hour, trying to keep the mosquitoes down. And in the evenings when there was no wind moving, they would collect in herds of two or three hundred head and mill in circles all night long trying to create their own breeze to ward off the little, biting pests. Once a breeze did spring up, they headed into it and never stopped for fences or anything else. One year, we received a telephone call from Fort Macleod saying there were at least two or three hundred head of cattle around the buildings just south of the C.P.R. station. The gentleman that phoned said he was sure that they were ours. So I rode from Glenwood over there, about thirty miles, and sure enough, he was right. Well, the wind had swung into the west about that time, and the mosquitoes of course can’t stay on an animal when there’s a heavy wind, so I only had to turn them back toward the leased land and most of them headed right out themselves. My brother, Alonzo, came up from the lease and met me and we brought the cattle back again. We found that they had gone through at least ten fences in this trip and forded the Belly River which was quite a sizable river when it got south of Fort Macleod. There was nothing that could stop them once mosquitoes bothered them.
We get a lot of those little, biting pests in the summer around here. We either apply bug spray (Everyone else) or hide in the house. (Me)It never occurred to me to walk into the breeze.For thirty miles.Yeah, I think I’ll stick with my solution.
It’s Ancestor Sunday! The day I celebrate my Fascinating Forebears.Tell me about yours!