Home And Family USA

Bugs, bugs, bugs! Say goodbye to those nasty, bothersome insects and bugs for the year. The cold weather is near. You know that this means they will all perish with that first frost. Or at least a great many of them will. I suppose a few will fly south and some will hide. The point is you won’t be needing mosquito repellant and numerous other DEET products. As much as I hate spraying this gunk all over myself daily during the summer months, I hate the bug bites worse. It always makes me laugh the way folks gripe about arachnids. Spiders may sneak into your basement or closet on occasion, but at least they don’t attack you relentlessly.

So I was staying up at my brother’s hidden cabin last summer. He thinks it’s so cool because it was constructed completely by hand. An Amish group built it for him. Okay, who am I kidding? That is one sweet little cabin. It has a loft and a wood stove. What else could a nature buff ask for? Anyway, I made certain to bring a few cans of mosquito repellant. I knew those little devils would be thick up there in the month of July. Heck, that’s probably when they’re the worst. I definitely know that ticks are horrible in the summer months. I ended up with a deer tick stuck to my forearm last July. This cost me some bucks at the doctor’s office. Not to mention the 60 pills I had to take for Lyme disease. That was a pain. The best way to avoid instances like this is tick and mosquito repellant. Wear plenty of this, regardless of how much you hate the smell. This is how you can warn them off and refrain from getting bitten. To make a long story short, I applied liberal amounts of mosquito repellant to my daughter and myself. We were the only two who did not get bitten by mosquitoes and other bugs.

Wal-Mart is a convenient place to pick up some useful mosquito repellant. Furthermore, I recommend a few other things if you’re headed up into the bush. Always carry a first-aid kit and a snake bite kit. Now you may snicker at the snake bite kit, but I assure you it comes in handy. I have used one of these on my daughter twice when she was stung by wasps. It literally draws the poison out and only leaves a red dot where the bite was. Pick up one the next time you’re shopping for mosquito repellant or outdoor supplies.

Sometimes we just need an extra bed. It might be when you’ve got company coming for the weekend and your place doesn’t have a guest room, or it could be when you are out camping and the ground just isn’t going to do. A self inflating air mattress is a quick and inexpensive way to create a bed in just a few minutes. It’s comfortable and with the self inflating feature you aren’t going to exhaust yourself by having to blow it up.

When many of us go camping we want to pack as lightly as possible. Nothing is more annoying than having to spend two hours unpacking gear from your vehicle. That’s partially the reason many people only bring along a sleeping bag. The idea of bringing an air mattress along with a pump to inflate it seems like too much trouble. With a self inflating air mattress you can actually roll up the entire unit into about the same size as a sleeping bag. For the comfort it provides, it’s a good idea to pack one. If you want to use it in conjunction with your sleeping bag it’s best to choose one that is an individual size. You can certainly buy a larger self inflating air mattress, but unless you have an oversize tent it might cause problems. The bigger sizes are best kept for household use.

Inflating it can be done by just about anyone. They way they are constructed is to allow for fast and easy use. All that is usually required is for you to turn the valve on the air mattress and it will begin to fill with air by itself. Don’t wander away while this is taking place as you’ll need to be there to turn off the valve. Most air mattresses like this can be inflated to a thickness that is desirable to the user. It’s good to experiment a bit to see how firm you want it.

When your trip is over you just need to deflate the mattress. This is just as easy and once all the air has left the unit, you’ll be able to roll it up and store it in a small space. A larger self inflating air mattress may need to be folded in quarters for storage. The best idea is to read the instructional guide that accompanies it, so you can care for it properly.

Popping a leak is never fun, but it can be fixed in most cases. You can obviously attempt to do this yourself and with the right tools it’s not a complicated task. Many people prefer to take the self inflating air mattress into a camping shop as they typically can ship it out to be fixed for you. If the damage is too severe, you’ll have to consider buying a new one. With proper care and storage you mattress should last you many summers.