For me the Great Fly Swat of '05 began with a phone call from a neighbour I barely knew, Sindee. Sindee lives with her partner a couple of kilometres down the road, in the Bibbey's Hoek neighbourhood, so we rarely run into each other. "Can I come around to chat to you about a problem we're having locally?" Up to that point, our only interaction had been when she moved in. Several of us were in the thick of the Battle of Hyde Park, and we tried enlisting Sindee's support in The Cause. No luck. "I don't get involved in neighbourhood issues. We prefer to keep to ourselves..."

Okay!

So you will understand my surprise at being asked by her to become involved in a "neighbourhood issue"! I invited her over. We sat out on the stoep in the warm late-Spring sunshine, the air muzzy with the hum of insects and the sweet leaf-mold smell of the forest and recent rain. "Are you folk having as much trouble with flies as we are?" she asked.

"What flies?" I was a bit puzzled.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, "it's absolute hell down our way. Everything is absolutely covered in flies! You can't make a meal without the flies absolutely devouring it before you can. Nothing can be left uncovered. It's that damn Grass Farm!"

The Summer before, a very nice young couple, Mr. and Mrs. Evergrass, had bought the old Hyde Farm -- or what remained of it after the depredations of the Hyde Park get-rich-quick "development" scheme. They had spent considerable effort (not to mention a healthy chunk of cash) developing it as a Grass Farm, growing and selling roll-on lawn. A very nice farm it is, too! Now personally I consider sprawling lawns to be one of the diagnostic symptoms of our sick, environmentally out-of-touch society, a last hangover from the British Vampire. Given the opportunity, I would tax lawns out of existence. But, since since all the Property Developers From Hell and their InstaGratifie Clientele insist on buying instant roll-on lawn, better that it should be cultivated in a sustainable way, and Mr. Evergrass was certainly doing that.

Each week he trucked in several tons of Chicken Manure, sourced from a Chicken Factory in Plettenberg Bay that had once been sited way out in the countryside, but abruptly found itself surrounded by town. About a hectare of the farm was set aside for a composting operation. Thirty metre long compost heaps -- around twelve of them -- made from the imported Chicken shit and an equal quantity of wood shavings, turned every third day with a front-end loader, and watered plentifully, cooked up into a really hot composting operation. When I saw the Evergrass composting operation, I reckoned that the compost was easily reaching temperatures of 70°C, more than hot enough to kill any insect eggs, larvae or weed seeds. The compost was finally used after several months to create the "soil" base in which the grass was grown.

What a contrast to The Other Lawn Farm in the neighbourhood, which simply, and with the tacit blessing of the gullible fools at Cape Nature Conservation, strip-mines the topsoil, 5cm at a time.

Sindee claimed to be convinced that the Evergrass Lawn Farm was the source of all the flies. I tried all sort of tactics to persuade her otherwise.

"Flies? You call these flies? This is nothing. Nothing, I tell you! You should have seen how many there were the first Summer we were here! We were eating flies. And glad for them!" I declaimed.

"Well, we've just had the first decent rains in almost seven years of drought; of course there are a lot of flies. The eggs build up in the soil and the rainy weather, followed by the warm Spring days has seen loads of them hatching out and hurrying through their lifecycle." I explained.

"The Brown family live more than ten kilometres away, and they have flies far worse than here." I said.

"Needle, nardle, noo!" I cried.

It all fell on deaf ears. "I'll run them out of town!" swore Sindee.

So finally her true agenda was emerging.

It is a great peculiarity to me that people -- normally quite sane, sensible and intelligent people -- will move out of Town into the countryside, their aim to escape the hustle, bustle, and above all stress of city life, only to bring all their baggage with them. Instead of accepting that things are bound to be, at the very least, different, and preparing themselves for it mentally, psycologically and spiritually, they keep on trying to live a citified lifestyle in the countryside! They rush in and out of town in their little 4x4mobiles, several times a day. And then complain about the fuel cost. They install hot and cold flushing water in every room, all driven by a pressure pump drawing from their meagre two rainwater tanks. And then wonder why they run out of water in every dry spell. They "Oh Dahling! It's so cute having all those Cows wandering about across the road!" And then bitch and moan when a lonely cow Calls For Her Man all night long. Or the neighbour's donkey gets to having a good old Shout about the state of the world.

Now, I grant the Donkeys can and do get pretty fucking loud and persistent. But it's all part of The Deal! Isn't this exactly the "country life" you were looking for? Isn't this better than gunshots at 3 a.m., Sirens To Follow? The dirt roads that the Local Authority cannot adequately maintain: is that not better than sitting in traffic for an hour-and-a-half every morning? And again every evening? Were you not complaining about "feeling disconnected from the Earth", in some New Agey Aquarian way? So how is Not Having A Limitless Supply of Poisoned (Chlorinated/Fluoridated) Water somehow now worse than what you sought to escape?

Me, I revel in my Rainwater. I wouldn't have things any other way. So why are these people mowing four acres of Rolling Lawns, making themselves slaves to some image they need to live up to, created by the Media Machine in the sole pursuit of Selling More Shit?

Sindee proceeded to lay siege to the Evergrass family. Their children were ostracised at playschool. Their name was made Mud around town. It all culminated on a Community Meeting one fine Thursday evening, held in the Dutch Reformed Church Hall, and facilitated by a Professional Environmental Consultant. In the Name of Impartiality.

No names were named; no specifics were mentioned. Sindee attached at least three pages of photocopied notes on The Health Hazards of Flies "purely for background information." The notes were about species of flies that are not found in this country, but let us leave that aside. The meeting was opened with the Laying Down of the Ground Rules. In true New Agey, all-inclusive, we're all equal here form, we were assured that everybody would have an equal chance to air their views, without bias or judgement. This was followed by about 40 minutes of selected Airing of Views, all very antipathetic towards the Evergrass farm, all expressed by people recently moved into Hyde Park from various cities.

One complainant particularly sticks in my mind; she complained at length about all the grief that the flies were causing her horses. As a teen, my best friend was a Horsey Type -- Provincial Dressage Team, Showjumping and All That, Dahling -- as a result of which I got dragged to more Horsey Events than I care to recall, and ended up spending a lot more time around horses and stables than I had ever planned on. And the thing I remember most... the defining characteristic of horses and stables... is this: They always attract flies. Beyond counting were the times I accidentally, and to my long-lasting regret, stumbled into one of the horrible, sticky, smelly fly-traps hung around the place in a futile effort to reduce the numbers. Not to mention that our Complainant's next-door neighbour was grazing a dozen cattle on their property. I will tactfully refrain from mentioning the inherently-defective septic-tank-and-French-drain[1] systems installed on sixteen properties by clueless townie plumbers.

I wonder where all those flies came from?

Eventually I was given a turn to Air My View. The moment the Facilitator realised that I was going to come out in defence of the Evergrass family, I was hastily, nastily and unceremoniously Shut Up. Not unexpected,really, but Ahhh! you gotta love local politics.

The meeting adjourned for a short Smoke Break at that point, and I left. I have no interest in assisting any lynch mobs.

I later heard that A Committee had been formed to investigate further how the Fly Problem could be solved. The Evergrass Roll-on Lawn Farm continued trucking-in ten tons of chicken-shit a week and composting it. Their their very successful business carried on, selling no less than fourteen different varieties of roll-on lawn.

A year draidled by.

The Evergrass family decided to sell-up, taking a very tidy profit along the way, mainly because Mr Evergrass was not particularly happy as a grass-farmer, prefering to follow his original vocation as Carpenter. Nothing ever came of the Fly Swatting Committee and their Jihad Against (Some) Lawn Farming.

The flies have been worse than ever this year. I wonder who they're going to blame now?