Warm Weather Camping

Fred and I went camping on Saturday night (April 5) in the middle of a heatwave! Although the burning ban had been lifted (as of April 2), it was very dry and windy, so we did not have a fire. It was a warm night, anyway.

We pitched our hammocks in the valley, south of Hillfield. If you follow the trail, the site is about 20 minutes from the road. This was my second over-nighter at that spot. It’s a nice spot for hammocks and also for tents, because there is a nice, flat clearing that I believe is part of an old road bed.

I stayed in the forest for a while after we broke camp on Sunday. I drove to Dixon Field to take a swim in the White Oak River. I set up my new hammock-ready screen shelter near the swimming hole and set up my hammock chair inside. I went for a swim and when I came back I boiled water for a freeze-dried meal.

My relaxing lunch was cut short by a swarm of tiny, red bugs that looked like chiggers. They were crawling all over me and my gear. I finished my lunch as quickly as I could, packed everything up and headed back to my car. When I got home, I took my clothes off outside and immediately hit the shower.

After showering and feeling like I had dodged a bullet, I discovered one of the tiny bugs on my laptop and decided to dig out my microscope and have a look at it. At first, I could not even count the legs on the little bug. Apparently, I mangled it a bit when I put the cover-slip on the slide. After working out that it did have 8 legs, I went on-line to get a picture of a chigger. After doing some research and looking at lots of photos, I determined that chiggers are smaller than my specimen. A chigger is around 0.45 mm across and my bug was closer to 1 mm (I have a special slide for measuring specimens down to 0.01mm in size). I believe the bugs I encountered were clover bugs, which do not bite people, but are known to infest homes. In any case, I didn’t get any chigger bites, so those little red bugs probably weren’t chiggers. It was a bit of a scare, though; I dread chigger bites.

I suppose I could post a photo of my screened in shelter, although it didn’t protect me from those clover bugs. I think I’m going to burn the leaves in the area where I’m erecting my shelter, next time … just to be on the safe side.