fly season
With summer comes bugs. It's been so dry for the last few weeks that there are barely any mosquitos, but other bugs are out in force. I was delighted the other day to see the first fireflies in the bushes round the edges of our yard: even as old as I am they're still magical. We experience the magic more later in the summer—right now we all hope to be in bed by the time they start lighting things up—but it's still a wonderful sign of summer that they're out.
Less wonderful is the sudden appearance of the deer flies in many of the woods where we like to walk. I don't know if there are ever baby deer flies, but starting at the end of last week the world seems full of hungry adult specimens. Happily, while I used to be very nervous of them—we've had some terrifying encounters with aggressive swarms on Cape Cod—I've now discovered the secret method for walking in deer fly territory without being bothered: wear a hat. And maybe a shirt with a higher collar. For me, at least, that's all that it takes. They always go for the head, which means that without a hat even when they're not biting me they're driving me crazy by bouncing off my hair. I hardly notice them when I'm wearing a cap. Too bad for the dogs though: the flies are driving them to distraction. The other day I tried to take a picture of them rolling and snapping at the cloud all around them:
you can't see the flies in this picture, but Scout knew they were there
A lot of people freak out about bugs. I for sure know folks who hesitate to venture off the sidewalks for fear of ticks, and of course you see plenty of those little signs showing that a yard has been poisoned by Mosquito Squad. Bedford sprays wetland areas a couple times of year to control mosquitos, in hopes of preventing mosquito-borne diseases. At least that's the official justification; it could just be that people don't like mosquitos. I'll definitely slap a mosquito if it's nearby, and I totally understand the public health concerns around EEE outbreaks (thank goodness we don't have malaria to worry about!) but I wish we could find more targeted solutions so we could chill on the spraying. That spray kills the fireflies too!