fun with horsefiles

Any sensitive types or PETA members might want to skip this next post...

It's fascinating what you learn out here on the road. We picked up a little "farm technology" from Dean.

First off, horseflies are really nasty little varmints. They're sort of the polar bears of the fly world. I got bit on the shin bone. They actually bite! So they aren't worthy of any particular sympathy.

Anyway, Dean told us a little story. Horseflies are tough to kill. A good swat just stuns them. Give 'em a little time and they fly away. Now here's the interesting part. If you take a stunned horsefly and insert a blade of grass up its rectum it'll fly away. But it can only fly straight up.

Now hearing a story like that, and being in a campsite full of horseflies, we decided we had to try it out. Terry swatted the horsefly. Then Dean did his magic. Inserting a blade of grass into a horsefly's rectum is a bit of a surgical procedure. Well, the operation was a success, but the patient died. The fly just wriggled around on the ground until we put it out of its misery. Dean swears it's because Terry swatted the fly too hard. Personally, I think the problem occurred sometime during surgery. I guess we'll never know.