Saturday, May 15, 2010

Where are the Black Flies?

I suppose I should be glad. They are the bane of my Spring rapture and the excuse for untended garden chores. They hover and annoy, bite quickly and leave welts and swollen eyes. I dread them each year, though we've reached a rather fair standoff. I wear a netted shirt with hood, and don't complain about the few bites I do recieve. It's sort of my contribution to the Black Fly blood bank.

Yet this year the little buggers are few and far between, and I'm not sure if I'm glad or sad. The warmth and flowers arrived early this year and it feels like global warming to me, though I have no idea why this should be such a warm year. Perhaps a butterfly sneezed in China.

The oil continues to spill unabated into the Gulf of Mexico and I've just learned that it has reached the Atlantic loop. This is the water current that will bring the oil around the coast of Florida and up the eastern seaboard. I feel like this Spring is a gift of the beauty that we may never see again.

A pair of chickadees has built a nest in the box just beyond the back door and the babies call with vigor for their daily food. I've planted the onions (Copra) and made the Dandelion wine, which is ready for bottling. The Lilacs are just opening and the Daffodils have all gone by.

I'm practicing patience and looking for all the little joys. The oil spill occupies my thoughts and fills my prayers with drawn out pleas for sanity and quick resolutions. I know these are futile requests, yet I can think of no other way to deal with these thoughts of hopelessness and despair.

The above pictures of the eggs are bittersweet as well. The cockatil eggs have all turned out to be sterile and I have no idea why. The frog eggs look healthy an viable, yet I've been llosing frogs to a new fungal disease thaat has spread around the world in the last few years. The tadpoles survive but the adult frogs succomb to the new disease. It's rather disheartening.

I have decided that I really do miss the Black Flies.

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