evolving

If your views change, does that make you flexible or uncommitted?

I would pick flexible (at least I think I would; I may change my mind on this).



peony at dawn


Not so long ago, I couldn't fathom why, here in buggy Madison, we do not consider following the practices of Virginia Beach: they spray and kill adult mosquito populations on a regular basis. In the weeks when mosquitoes at the farmette are dense, I would think that Virginia Beach got it right.



peony in the afternoon


I changed my mind when I started skimming the literature on fogging against mosquitoes. If you read the labels of the pesticides used, the warnings are enough to send you indoors and throw up your arms in despair.

But then I changed my mind again. It's not that I favor Virginia Beach's approach necessarily, but further readings tell me that there are foggings you can do occasionally, oh, say once or twice a season, that are not nearly as damaging as they likely were in the past.



peony in the evening


I mention this not only because we are awaiting the season of mosquito activity here, but also because it really gives you pause about strong convictions. If reading more literature changes your mind and if reading even more literature changes it again, what room is there for strong convictions anyway?
Maybe we can just say that our views are evolving. Rapidfire, or slowly, over a lifetime -- evolving. I can live with that (until the day when I cannot).


Right now, midges, not mosquitoes are the talk of the town here, at the farmette.  It is their week of annoying the daylights out of me and not only me. The chickens hate them. Oreo positively despises their buzz and pogo-sticks his way to the garage, to hide underneath the sailboat Ed keeps there (it's a very tiny sailboat). All day long, he hides.



Oreo in the morning: tentative




Oreo in the afternoon: are you okay, buddy?



Other news? Well, there is breakfast. Porch. Despite the rain outside.






And, as I said, the chickens mostly look for places to hide today: from the rain and from the pesky, tiny flies.






By evening, the rain passes, the clouds part and the farmette looks its springtime best.






Midges and evolution of thoughts notwithstanding.











Early night. Because Ed is out riding his bike with his regulars, I'm the one who is locking up the coop. I step out into the most perfect moment. It's cooling down a bit and yet it feels deliciously summer-like. The midges have retired (who knew that they only like daylight), the mosquitoes haven't emerged yet. It's absolutely still.


 


I walk the farmette land -- from coop to the veggie garden (it's splendid this year --  vibrant and on schedule), to the great big willow that joins various parts of the property and holds it as her own.





Of this I am certain: nights this beautiful come maybe a handful of times each year. And you can think that's not good enough. Or you can not think much of anything at all. You take in a deep June breath of air, let it out, look up, look out, walk home.