 Hi there and welcome to getting clean on the prairies. So it is finally spring here and we're getting towards the end of April. So we finally, it's warm enough to get out and start working in my yard, doing stuff on my garden, do some walking. But sadly with spring comes the bugs as well and here in on the Saskatchewan prairies where I live we also get ticks and early spring into just to the beginning of summer is usually tick season here on the prairies. I have unfortunately have had a few experiences in the past couple years of finding ticks attached to my skin and having to remove them is not a pleasant experience and just talking about them makes my skin crawl. So one of the things that I always get myself ready for in the spring is the ticks and then the mosquitoes and all the other fun little bugs that like to join us in our yard. So I'm gonna show you in my video some all-natural bug spray that I have made up for myself and this is just has three components to it. So it's just a very simple recipe that contains water and some kind of a astringent and some essential oils. So I'm just going to take you into my kitchen and show you how I put together a couple of batches of bug spray that I hope to I can use throughout the spring and summer keep those pesky bugs away and enjoy myself outside. So for the mixture that I use in my recipe I just do a 50-50 blend of distilled water and an astringent and those astringents could be either a apple cider vinegar witch hazel or some kind of alcohol such as vodka. For this recipe today I'm using witch hazel because I have a large supply of it so I'm gonna just want to use it up. As I said apple cider vinegar is a good one or just regular white vinegar works. For us here in Canada alcohol is pretty darn expensive so vodka isn't something I would use but it is any kind of alcohol works good as well. As far as the essential oils I've done a bit of research on what ones work well for ticks and for mosquitoes and one particular essential oil that seems to come up a lot for tick prevention is geranium oil. So I'll be using some of that in this blend. It seems to just have a good scent that really repels ticks so I'll be using that for sure. Cedar wood is another essential oil that's supposed to work well at repelling ticks as well as tea tree oil. Now as far as mosquito repellent citronella oil of course is something as a common oil that works well and I've also used lemon grass but one one that I read about that's supposed to work particularly well is lemon eucalyptus or eucalyptus oil which apparently has an ingredient that is quite similar to deet and is supposed to work well for repelling mosquitoes. So I'm going to use quite a few different oils just because I have a large supply. You can use one or more. Some of them are less expensive than others so just whatever you have or whatever you would like to invest in should work. I would like to also note that the blend I'm using today is considered for adults or human use only if you're looking to make one for your pets or your to use on children. I would definitely say please do your research on essential oils and make sure that you're using some that you consider safe for your pets or for children. So I just want to talk a bit about the containers that you can use to make your bug spray. I'm using a aluminum container for mine and I can also would also recommend if you have an amber or a dark colored glass container. Both of these work best for blocking out UV rays that can damage the the long-term effect of your essential oils but a cheap plastic spray bottle from the dollar store works just as well too. So I'm going to start off by putting in my witch hazel and my containers are four ounces so I will be putting two ounces into each of them. For your essential oils there's really no hard and fast measurement that you have to follow. You can make these as strong or as weak as you see fit. For my blend here I used a variety of different essential oils and put about a total of 30 to 40 drops into each of my containers. Then I just finished off by filling up the containers with some distilled water. So that's all you need to do to make up your own tick and mosquito spray. For the best protection against ticks be sure to give your pant legs and feet a good spray before you head outside outdoors and this is also safe to apply all over including your skin for when those pesky mosquitoes come out. So I hope you found this video helpful and that you will leave a comment below. Please don't forget to hit the like button and subscribe so that you don't miss out on the next video coming to my channel. Thanks for watching.