Thursday, May 22, 2008

Might be wetland, but it ain't no swamp.

I've been waiting for the bugs to hatch. The last time we lived in Kittery, we moved here in November and left in mid-May. I distinctly remember SHORT weeks between when it warmed up (like hit 50 degrees) and the bugs hatching. Blissful wonderful weeks with fiddleheads on the side of the road and clear trails in the woods. The marsh mosquitos and black flies then hatched and being outside was no fun again. So I've been holding my breath. Enjoying the weather, waiting for the inevitable.

So yesterday we went for a hike on some trails near our house. They go down our road and then off into the woods and across a "wetland" over to a railroad trestle and then back to the end of our road which is not really a road, but a 4-wheel drive path through the woods. We saw cool stuff. A porcupine lumbering down the trail. The work of the beavers - seriously it was like a cartoon the way they gnaw the trunk to a point until the tree falls over - and the sawdust they create! But the biggest news was that in fact the bugs HAVE hatched. And perhaps we'll be spared the infestation at our house because they were TERRIBLE in the woods with the big swamp. Our little wetland just must not be big enough. DARN, huh? WOOHOO. I don't want to count my eggs before they hatch, but I am hopeful working in the garden won't be torture until the dragonflies hatch and eat the mosquito larvae. Maybe it won't be torture at all.

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