Someone Send Me Nine Fly Swatters & A Pair Of Blaze Orange Laces - It's Fall!

Flies ruin everything.



Seriously, for those of us on The Compound, the F in fall stands for flies: nasty, swarming little critters with the irritating tendency to give up the ghost all at once and die in mass graves on our tables, shelves, and window frames, just as if someone had poured a bowl of them out onto our furniture.  This massive crash landing only seems to occur when we have an unseasonable [not to mention, merciful] spell of warmth in this already wintry climate.  (Ice in September, yes.)

I hope the Hawaiian Islands have their own version of this sort of thing, because otherwise, that's just not fair.  Not only is the infestation disgusting, but apparently, it's also our fault.

Just ask the Log Doctor.  Yeah, you read that right: the Log Doctor.   This expert seems to think that we need to reseal the windows.  Or buy some fly tape in bulk, which i've been considering heavily.

Lest you think we have been bested by our kamikaze friends, rest assured.  These few and glorious warm days we've had since September have not gone unappreciated.  We've swam laps.  We've paddled rivers.  We've arched archery.

And we've run.  Shockingly, we've gone and run some more.

I run in spells, which is to say, in stretches.  Which I guess is also to say that I'm astonishingly undisciplined, and can't stick with a habit for more than a matter of weeks.  If you don't believe me, ask someone I hang out with.  I'll crochet twenty-five tiny hats in a week, then quit cold turkey.  I'll paint my fingernails a different color every three days, then stop for six months.  I'll start growing my hair out... then cut it to an inch and a half.  I'll wake up early to work out... then, a few days later when I realize that the other option is to stay in bed, I'll drop my ambition like an anchor and slam the snooze button.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I don't do long-term discipline, but I totally rock at being impulsive.

I'm sure I'll be back to my normal (read: lazy) self soon, but I've been in a bit of a running mood these last weeks.  This is fantastic, especially considering two things:

1)  C and I leave for our third annal Utah Camping Spectacular in just over a week.  The air is so much thinner up on those canyon ledges, and if there's any way that I can lessen the amount of huffing, puffing and splotchy-skinned embarrassment I will undoubtedly endure in view of the general public - well, it's a gift I'll take, thank-you-very-much.

2)   You might think this is premature, or that I'm just exaggerating again (Me?  Exaggerate?), but here's the truth: winter's a-coming.  And, based on some fairly consistent past experience, I tend to get a little "soft" during the snowy season.  You might call it getting "doughy", "jiggly", or even "squishy".  C and I just call it "having a little extra".  A little extra what, you ask?

A little extra of a lot of things, actually.  That's the problem.  It's like putting on one of these, only it's not a suit.

source

It's just more of me.

So, even if I run in phases, i'll still count it as running.  And even if the Fly-pocalypse occurs only on floridian days, I'd still rather have the buzzing, balmy respite than submit to a seven-month period of looking more and more like I live in a network of underground tunnels.

Sometimes you can't win 'em all.

And sometimes you just can't win.   But on those rare occasions when you're in the lead - albeit, temporarily - don't complain.  Just bask in the glory.  Because that - that - is your moment.

Until a fly lands in your coffee. Then you know you're back.

Down The Rabbit Hole

As I was sweeping cabins earlier today,  I got to thinking, "Good-night, M, if you don't post something on that silly blog of yours soon, they'll all suspect you've gone off the deep end".  They'll wonder if you've finally become a forest dwelling, ax-swinging nut with a propensity for off-roading in inappropriate vehicles and having long [audible] conversations with herself.

Phew.  Glad I've avoided that.

My brainchild occurred only a an hour or so after Helen, a new (and awesome) year-long staffer, pulled a mouse out of the washing machine.

And the thought came just a little while before my husband and two of our neighbors/co-workers/fellow woodsman went outside to try and shoot a skunk that is living in our woodpile.

A woodpile located directly below our front deck,

which also happens to sit right outside my office window.

Fine, the woodpile basically is my office window.

While the chase ensued, I tackled my own challenge: eating half of a watermelon.  This comes to no one's surprise.

Why is no one surprised?  Because eating entire melons and chasing woodland creatures is beginning to feel normal.  The strange-but-true reality of life here has slowly pulled a foggy haze over my perceptions of what to should expect out of a day.

For example, I've recently managed to:

• overflow the pot in the Bunn coffee maker, multiple - ok, dozens - of times.  
• shake someone's hand while holding a pirate's hook in my sleeve (we'd never met before)
• spray water all over the dish pit, ceiling included.  

         [Since we're on the subject, here's a brief life lesson:

    In the battle of human dishwasher vs. ladle, 

there are no winners - only losers.

It looks so harmless.

 

    I'd compare it to running an ultra-marathon naked, 

in Manitoba, 

in February

 or 

to drinking questionable milk]

I've also managed to...

• stay upright in a kayak through most of the Kennebec Gorge (read: most)
• drive a four-wheeler 
• pet a black bear.  It actually felt quite like my cat, only larger and less alive.
• plunge the single-most-foul toilet I've ever encountered.  If I close my eyes, I can still see it.
• shoot archery with a gaggle of sweet Dominican grandmothers.
• start wearing hats.  Thank you to my friend Cathy, state food service laws, and that one retreat guest who left me a fedora.  Her fedora.  On purpose.  I look too much like a little boy to pull it off [without looking like a little boy].
• stop sleeping in.  This seems simultaneously gluttonous and tragic, and yet I will probably attempt to return it to my skill set pronto.
• take one day off in a month.  Though it may sound like I'm flaunting some big accomplishment here, what I'm really saying is that this kind of behavior is particularly unadvisable and likely a result of your own bad planning.  Plan better next time. 
• live in a state of heightened anxiety and panic (see above).
• remain in wedded bliss weddedness.  Considering the previous truth, this is a miracle.  I'd have banished me.  

I keep thinking that I should maintain a list of the unique happenings that that take place here in the woods, and perhaps I really ought to, but as time goes on, the instances themselves become less and less unique and, consequently, more and more everyday.

In conclusion, I suppose I will start on that list...

providing something really weird happens.