We live in what was formerly known as the Black Swamp. Poetic name isn't it? In a hypothetical sort of way. No one really wants to live in a swamp but over the past few years we've gotten so much rain, it's becoming easier to imagine just what it was like in the days before proper drainage systems.
I don't have to look up stats or records to know that torrential downpours every couple of days is not typical for summers in northwest Ohio. I know this because since childhood I have always mowed the lawn, and since most of the lawns I've mowed were in the country, people in the country do not waste water by keeping that grass nice and green. When it stops raining, the yard dies and you don't have to mow it anymore! Then later it rains and grows back. The rules are you should get at least an occasional week off in July and August. Sometimes you get most of July and August off entirely. It's just the way it is and the way it should be. Hot, dry, no mowing. Instead there is standing water everywhere, water washing out fields, covering yards. Flood warnings and watches are the norm. We had some storms last week with so much rain the roads around here were literally washed out, as in, "Holy shit! I'm not driving through that! It's halfway up the bumper of that freaking truck!!!"
I feel for those early settlers, hacking their way through weeds and trees, sinking up to their thighs in never-ending mud. Mostly though what would have surely been enough to turn me back are bugs. Especially mosquitoes. I'm all for organic gardening and nurturing Mother Earth but right now all I want to hear is the sound of the county's mosquito spray truck driving down our road at dusk. I betcha there's a real market for illegal pesticides right about now. I live in a wooded area first off. You cannot leave the house at night and daytime isn't much better. We have cans of Off and Cutters sitting around everywhere. And my house is old. It has gaps in the windows and tears in the screens. The mosquitoes are so thick that just drifting around out there or whatever it is they do, a whole lot of them end up inside. What can you do? Nothing, nothing except slap your hands together, only to watch them skitter away, or smash them gleefully on walls. If anyone has come up with a way to smack them on the monitor without knocking it over, please let me know. It can't last, right? They'll come through and spray any day now which will knock them back for a short time, and then before we know it, winter will arrive and I'll have something else to complain about!
Credit for the mosquito picture goes to this website. What a great site! I can sit here for another hour or so just reading about the mosquitoes I loathe. skeeterbite.info Gawd I love the internet.
