We’re on the shore of Lake Michigan for a few days, late summer, and it’s been hot. These guys, called alternatively biting house flies, stable flies, dog flies, power mower flies, affectionately known in fly lit as stomoxys calcitrans, busy themselves around your ankles, heels, toes, knees, shins, calves, thighs, sucking blood anywhere on your exposed lower extremities. An entomologist at Michigan State blames Wisconsin, suggesting the flies cross the lake from dairy farms over there. It’s a long trip. They get hungry. They like rotting organic matter and animal waste. To them, evidently, I’m as good as a pile of crap.