Permethrin is made from chrysanthemums.

"Don't slog in the bog; get high on the ridges!" has been my hiking motto since age 21. I like to get to high ridges and peaks where it's windy. No bugs.

Last month at a summit, the wind was so fierce it pushed me sideways. "Take off you pack and sit down," Karen said.

I crawled to the edge and carefully sat on the rocks. Didn't want the wind to push me over the cliff.

In this photo, I'm leaning against the wind, blowing from my left.

That's why my hiking partner, Karen, sewed herself a burqa made of fine bug screen fabric, that falls from her hat to her lower legs. To eat, Karen has openings for her arms and hands. Brilliant!

She ordered the bug screen fabric from REI.

I'm one of the people that mosquitoes love. I'm overly reactive to insect bites. Insect bites cause large, raised, painful, itchy welts that last for weeks, ever since being bit by 300 spiders at once in 1997. That's a funny story.

So, I go to great lengths to prevent insect bites.

@LiterateHiker Being bit by 300 spiders doesn't sound like any fun or funny.

@AstralSmoke, For 43 years, I have been watching the Perseid Meteor Shower each August. In my 20's I backpacked to a high ridge, set a tiny alarm clock for 2 a.m. Stuck my head out of the tent, counted 100 shooting stars in 30 minutes, then fell asleep with shooting stars going back and forth inside my eyelids.

In 1997, I talked my boyfriend, Willy, into taking me up to a mountain. He had an old friend, a former Ph.D. scientist who had worked at Hanford Nuclear Reservation. A radiation leak occurred inside the building. Automatically, all of the doors locked the employees inside with the radiation.

Outraged, this scientist dropped out of society, bought a mountaintop near Vancouver, WA and moved a trailer to the summit. He refused to get electricity. An electrical hookup was 20 feet from his trailer. That's where we headed with two foldable cots.

In the mad scientist's dark, filthy trailer- poorly lit by a kerosene lamp- I looked around for something to sit on. The only chair was a tree stump, with a high outer section as a chairback. Inexplicably, I was wearing tights and a short dress. From that stump, tiny spiders swarmed up my thighs and back. They injected anaesthetic before their venom. I didn't feel anything.

The meteor shower was fantastic! That night I felt itchy in my sleeping bag. I figured I was too hot.

By morning, my throat was closing up. Willy frantically drove me to a clinic. My back and thighs were covered with 300 (he counted) bright red welts, about 3" in diameter and raised 1/4" off the skin.

"I'm not ready for my Playboy shoot," I quipped before dropping my gown and turning around. "Looks like some kind of arachnid," the doctor said dryly.

Immediately, the doctor gave me a shot of Benadryl. For six weeks, I took a powerful prescription of Benadryl. It took six weeks for the welts and itching to go away.

Mad scientist, indeed.

@LiterateHiker Wow, and I thought I was bad. There was a reality show last year about a bunch of people competing to survive in Patagonia. A Lopez woman competed and we got to watch her on TV. She was into eatable plants and did well (she runs a herbal and art store here called Pachemama. She even built a steam sauna. Unfortunately, she got bitten by some poisonous spiders and the bites got so infected she had to call it quits.
We don't have that serious of a bug problem here. I was getting bitten even during the winter (my late partner never got bitten). I know fruit flies can breed in sink traps so I closed all the traps. I discovered some house plants had standing water so I covered them. Then I realized the bugs were mainly in the master bath and the only thing that could attract them was the sonocare toothbrush light so I left it off at night. The bites stopped. There is a company called "Mosquito Magic". They make several products and one that helps me is a glycerine soap infused with citronella. They also make a plastic cage filled with strong citronella one can wear. It also helps. Don't get the citronella wipes. They are so strong that even your friends will desert you!!

@LiterateHiker Wow, never had anything like that happen to me before. Can't say I want it to either. And you lived to tell the story!

@LiterateHiker mad scientists make any story better. I like this one too.

Lucky you!