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Fight mosquitoes with citronella candle options

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citronella garden gnomeI had a request inquiring where to find some citronella candles for mosquitoes a couple days ago so sharing some of my finds.

Here’s a citronella candle offering a new slant on the garden gnome. I’m not sure what’s up with the blue color but it’s different and can be found at Clean Air Gardening. I’m not a big fan of gnomes but my daughter gave me a tiny one and I didn’t have the heart to tell her so it’s sitting on my desk.

If you’re looking for a more traditional looking candle, check out these votives called Bug Away from 100Candles or citronella pillar candles from HGTV Market Place.

If you want to make your own citronella candle, check out CraftBits simple citronella candle project instructions.

Citronella candles do help if you sit close enough but it’s still best to have some back up protection.

Thanks to Cathy Wong, I found several other natural mosquito repellents you could try. Apparently, repellent containing 5% fennel oil is 84% more effective against mosquitoes after 90 minutes.

See Natural Mosquito Repellents for more ideas.

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Fun Facts About Flags

Whether you celebrate Flag Day (June 14 in the United States, it honors the day in 1777 that the American flag was officially adopted) or just want to do a flag unit study, there are lots of interesting flags around the world that you can talk about.

For example, did you know there’s one flag that isn’t a rectangle? The flag of Nepal is the only national flag that isn’t quadrilateral (Switzerland and Vatican City both have flags that are square). Nepal’s flag is shaped like two stacked triangles, which represent the Himalayan Mountains, as well as the two main national religions, Hinduism and Buddhism.

Several flags feature animals, mostly lions, bears and eagles. Two flag feature dragons. The flag of Bhutan has a representation of a Druk, a mythical thunder dragon, while the flag of Wales has a Welsh dragon.

Paraguay is the only country recognized by the United Nations that has a flag that is different on the front and back. The flag has red, white and blue horizontal stripes, with the nation’s coat of arms on the front and the seal of the treasury on the back. (Oregon is the only US state with a flag that is different on the front and back. The front shows a seal with an eagle, 33 stars for its number in the union, and the words “state of Oregon” and the date it was admitted, 1859. The back has a picture of a beaver.)

The flag of Denmark, known as the Dannebrog, is the oldest continuously used flag in the world. Legend has it the flag fell from the sky during a battle in 1219 in present-day Estonia, helping the Danish to an unexpected victory. Because of that, it was adopted as the national flag and has been in use for more than 800 years. Denmark’s flag is celebrated on June 15 each year, called Valdemar’s Day after the king leading the crusade where the flag allegedly appeared.

Purple is a rare color on national flags because it was historically expensive to produce. The only flags that use it (and it’s sometimes hard to see) are Dominica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Mexico and Spain. The Wiphala flag of Bolivia also contains purple.

There’s a fun page on Wikipedia that shows different flags arranged by design, so you can see all the tricolor flags, all the flags with stars, triangles, people and more. You can also look at flags by color.

If this has piqued your interest, maybe you’ll want to learn more about vexillology, the study of the history, design and symbolism of flags.