7 Ways Old Mennonites Kept Mosquitoes Away (No Spray, No Machine)

My name is Abram Friesen. I am Mennonite, Old Colony, and I have farmed the prairie my whole life, the way my people have since they came up out of Russia. Out here the mosquitoes rise off the low water in July thick enough to darken a lamp. We had no can of poison and no machine. And still, my Grootmutta Lena, my grandmother, could sit on her porch of an evening and never lift a hand. Most folks today fight the bug all backwards. They run, they swat, they spray themselves head to foot, and she finds them anyway. Here is why. A mosquito does not smell your skin. She smells your breath from across the yard and comes straight on. You cannot hide from that. So my people never tried. They gave the bug something it wanted more than them and set it at the edge of the yard, and the cloud went to it instead of the porch. I show you how Grootmutta made that decoy with what is in any kitchen, so you can set it out tonight. Then I walk you through the rest, the way it all worked together as one thing. The plant by every door the flies would not cross. The one she crushed and rubbed on the skin. The herbs in the windows. The screens and the dusk rule. The smudge smoke for the worst nights. And how we took away the standing water the bugs are born in, so there were fewer of them to begin with. This was not a handful of tricks. It was a whole household working on one bug from every side, long before anyone out in the world had a can to do it for them. It still works today, and it costs almost nothing. TIMESTAMPS 0:00 The Mosquitoes Off The Slough 2:49 Why You Cannot Hide From Them 4:23 Give Them Something Better - The Decoy 6:29 No. 1 Tansy By The Door 7:47 No. 2 Catnip On The Skin 9:08 No. 3 Herbs In The Windows 10:30 No. 4 Screens And The Dusk Rule 11:50 No. 5 The Smudge Fire 13:20 No. 6 Take Away The Water They Breed In 14:49 A Word On Keeping Safe 16:11 The Whole Thing, Start To Finish 17:22 The Two Things You Can Skip 18:41 Your Summer, Handed Back Folks always tell me you cannot keep the bugs off without a can of poison near the children. My people did it for a hundred years on the open prairie, by the low water where the mosquitoes are worst. The old ways were not helpless. They were clever, and they worked on the bug from every side at once. When the bugs are bad, a quiet porch is no small thing. It is an evening with your family, it is sleep, and for the little ones and the old folks it is comfort. These ways gave us all of that with no can and no bill, and they ask nothing of you but a little knowing. If this was a help to you, give it a like so more folks find it, and subscribe to sit with us a while. We keep the old ways here, the ones that still work. Next time I will show you how Tina and the women put up a whole summer's garden into jars, the beans and the corn and the pickle, so the cellar is full and bright long before the first frost ever comes. Come along and see. Keep your hands busy, your wants few, and your faith in the old ways. They have not failed us yet. #mennonite #oldways #mosquitoes #homestead #nochemicals #pestcontrol #prairie #frugalliving #oldcolony #tansy #gardening #selfreliance