Oven Summer

All this past non-winter, we knew we were in for it. Seventy degrees in March felt great, but was a bad omen.

And now we have it: the oven summer.

Some things arrived about the right time this spring: redwing blackbirds, robins, Baltimore orioles, sandhill cranes, barn swallows. But others came freakishly early, like monster-sized cow parsnip, June bugs and lightning bugs in May, and day lilies blooming in June. I even heard a cricket in mid-June; cricket calls are a normal end-of-summer sound for my Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin.

Wierdest phenomenon so far: an abundance of red box elder bugs. They swarm around my front and rear doors. They are creepy. I hope they don't get in. The red bugs remind me of alien pod people - I feel like a victim in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."

The priest in the church in Markesan, Wisconsin, called for a day of prayer and fasting for RAIN today. A very Biblical concept, and understandable: Markesan is a farming community built around a cannery. It's no big deal that folks in the city and suburbs haven't mowed their crunchy brown grass in three weeks, but for the farmers, rain means survival.

I wonder if all of this means that autumn will come early. I'm not sure what to hope for. I keep trying to be optimistic....

A Trifecta of Trouble in Tidewater

Years ago, Mike & I lived in Norfolk, Virginia. We became friends with another Mike & Gail, natives of the Tidewater area. We moved back home to Wisconsin in 1975, but have stayed in contact with them, yo, all these many years. They are retired, eccentric old hippies.

A few days ago, an earthquake hit Virginia. My Mike called to see how our friends were doing, but all the phone circuits were busy.

Now, we hear that Hurricane Irene is headed their way. The Outer Banks are being evacuated, and Mike and Gail have a second home there on the water.

Finally my Mike got through last night on the phone.

Yup, our friends felt the earthquake ("I was rolling one and it fell right out of my hand"). And their son was at the beach house yesterday but he was getting the heck out as of this morning.

Last, our friend Mike added, "Have you heard about the fire?"

"What fire?"

"The Dismal Swamp in North Carolina caught on fire. The peat has been burning for a couple of weeks. It's twelve miles from our house."

Maybe it helps to be eccentric at a time like this.  Good luck, Mike & Gail!