After a long series of raw or rainy days that had me coaxing small fires in the woodstove to take the chill off the house, yesterday was sunny, humid, and hot. Really hot. It may have topped 70F but I didn't check the thermometer. The black flies, which have been toying with us ever since the last snowfall, appeared en masse and in battle formation. I knew before I opened the door, as I could see the goats shaking their ears and making sudden short sprints in the paddocks.
Here we go.
Black flies, mosquitoes, deer flies, horse flies.
The hair is standing straight up on my head just from typing those words.
I'm going to try to start taking Piper for short walks very early in the morning. Piper has never been a morning person. Like LeShodu, who kept the whole herd on a Brunch, Not Breakfast schedule for her lifetime, Piper won't eat first thing in the morning. And even though dawn has always been one of my favorite times of day, after I've been up - not just awake, but up - on average every three hours throughout every night, I am not particularly sparky in the morning myself. So it will take a bit of effort, this experiment in early walks to see if we can avoid some of the biting bugs.
Today was Day One, and I persuaded Piper to come outside with me when the sky was greying but the sun had not yet come over the stone wall and through the woods. There was no one else walking on the road (I have seen more people and dogs on this road in the past few weeks than in the past decade) and the Invisible Dog That Always Barks At Us was silent. Our route was a narrow triangle of slightly more than a mile, and when the sun dazzled through just past the half-mile point, we began to see a few black flies. So...tomorrow I'll try to get my lazy self out a little earlier. Piper is a better sport than I am about getting out of bed and staggering toward the door, but only if I "go first," so I will have to be the driving wheel in this endeavor. Wish me luck.
~~~
p.s. I'm planning to get the Candy Roaster squash seeds in the mail this week.
Six people in three states have already emailed their mailing addresses, and I have LOTS of seed to share, so please feel free to join in!
~~~~~
