The first West Nile Virus death this year in Minnesota occurred a couple of days ago. Click here to read the article.
And just yesterday morning my mother was admonishing me about working in our 1/2 acre that is mostly brush and trees as mosquitoes can be present. She reminded me of the West Nile Virus that is taking people’s lives as mosquitoes transmit their disease to humans. Am I careful? Yes, I am, although even when I’m careful by using DEET on all exposed parts of my body, the mosquitoes sometimes find one small spot that I miss. They are able to find me by the smell of carbon dioxide that I emit when I breathe. Well, I do have to breathe …
Searching the internet for something more “natural” to put on my body that doesn’t have side effects, I came upon an idea that I thought I’d try. Â Garlic. Â Apparently mosquitoes don’t like the smell of garlic so I have been making a paste to rub on my body.
I have been using my homemade potion for a couple of weeks and it works just as well as DEET does. I still spray DEET on the bottom of my pants and shoes to keep away any tics that might be in the area (although we have only seen one this year). Have I gotten bitten using the garlic? Yes. I was bitten twice yesterday in places where I did not rub the garlic on my body. I don’t know if it matters whether you use fresh garlic or ground garlic but I have tried both and they have the same effect although the ground garlic is less trouble to use.
Some people say the garlic doesn’t work for them and they use Skin So Soft by Avon. And, as you can imagine, there are a lot more suggestions out there. If I find something that works (that’s not going to kill me) then I’ll stick with it until it stops working. This solution isn’t for everyone and one day the only thing that may work against mosquitoes is a chemical solution. That’s when I might have to move to a less buggy part of the United States.
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