What is it with these damn flies?

The English language is fascinating. It is I believe, one of the hardest languages to learn. Here is an example of why. Take the simple word FLY. It can mean many things. To name a few: A fishing lure; To move through the air; A Scottish Plaid draped over the shoulder; A zippered replacement for buttons on men's trousers; Or... the NATIONAL EMBLEM OF AUSTRALIA! a FLY! [You likely thought it was the Kangaroo didn't you?]

They are not everywhere though. Only when you don't want them. Hundreds of them, thousands of them, or worse still only one of them, but that one does not leave you alone. He sticks to you as you walk, or run, trying to get away from it. They get on your lips, ears and crawl on your glasses. Try running a circular saw with a fly in your nostril! We have tried working with a fly net over our cap and head. This is great until you try to have a drink or worse still, put some nails or screws in your mouth while working

They are smaller than a house fly and a bit dozier. However in all my attempts in the past six weeks I have only been successful with one sure kill! Somehow though, they do not seem to represent a health hazard to me. [Although I am sure they are.] Numerous discussions have never come up with a reasonable explanation of why they are so common in Australia. We have been in many third [or fourth?] world countries and have never had a second thought about the fly's origin there.

One fellow had a theory that when the wind blew from a certain direction it carried them down from a dairy farm to that particular place. Another is that it is due to the climate. On numerous occasions we have heard "we have never seen them so bad"

I remember my now deceased uncle Jim telling me a joke once about flies: Somebody was commenting about the amount of flies hanging around the outhouse to the homeowner, the man retorted, "don't worry about them, mom has some pies in the oven and when she puts them on the widow sill to cool they will leave the outhouse!"

I was about 20 when he told me that, and I still think about it when I see a fly in the kitchen.