Farm Journal, June 11, 2007

 Damp, warm, sticky. Sometimes I love the farm, sometimes I see it as a series of plagues visited on me.
 The allergies are brutal, and I can hardly breathe or stop wheezing.
  It is hot, sticky and damp.
 The ticks are epidemic. I pull them off of me, the dogs (about 10 a day) the donkeys.
 The mosquitoes and horseflies have come out like a marauding army, and walks can be unpleasant. I have to get out the bug spray and salve. And the swatters. Bug carcasses are splattered in the kitchen, and on the old windows (I have to be careful).
 I spent a month cleaning out manure from the winter pasture. Now the mud and muck have replaced it, and the grounds are soggy, smelly and everyone or thing who enters the house brings mud and dirt.
 The early summer arrival of mice and rats has occurred. Mother and Minnie are working overtime, and the carcasses are piling up. The Lab will eat them, if they can, but not the border collies. These two barn cats will prevail, for sure. They always do.
 There is an invasion of baby ducks, deer and rabbits, and that brings foxes, raccoons and coyotes. The howling at night, as the coyotes signal each other,  sounds like I’m in Dracula’s Castle, and sometimes the dogs just cower and vanish behind chairs and sofas.
 A series of storms has brought lightning to the farmhouse and grounds, and almost every electrical thing has been fried, and is acting strange and funky. The phones lines are filled with static, and clocks, the Internet satellite and satellite TV fade in and out, and lights and fans go on and off at strange times. Even the lens on my cameras fog up in the morning. As always, I think about the people who came here before me and wonder at the faith and fortitude it must have taken them to make it here, when life was so much harder.