May 6: The End of the Season

Poor Pig-Pen. The young man (happy as he is--get a load of that pleasant smile) travels in a perpetual cloud of his own stink.

I took what probably amounts to my last jog at the Spanish Pond today until October. I set out on the trail at a little after 3:00; it was 87 at the time (we peaked at 91), so I was probably making some stink lines of my own.

I was a little over a mile into my run when the bugs attacked. It was the entomological equivalent of Hitchcock's The Birds, and I suddenly understood how Pig-Pen felt. I was swarmed by horse flies, yellow flies, brown flies, no-see-ums, look-at-mes, carpenter bees, mosquitoes and a pterodactyl that dive-bombed me and lodged itself between my ball cap and my sunglasses.

I ran the last half-mile swatting at the sky like a meth junkie on a four-day bender. There wasn't a heck of a lot of dignity in it, let me tell you.

Life is filled with thresholds, and we step over this one every summer here on the peninsula. When it gets hot in Florida, the wildlife gets moving. State biologists issued a warning last week about gator activity, and we've seen snakes in the yard twice in the last week. The bugs are just another part of this ecosystem, and when they crank into full gear, it can get pretty squirmy (technical entomology term) out there.

I'll maybe hit the Spanish Pond early in the morning. I saw the sun come up today, and it was still in the mid to upper seventies then, so it's not like it's all that much cooler.

It's been a good week in the salt mines: fourteen pages so far, with a couple days left in the week. I hope the promise of this new season fills you all with energy, and that things are well where you are...