It’s funny how in the span of just one month, this place has gone from snow-covered mountains to summer. Today, the wind is blowing hard, but unlike a few days ago, the wind isn’t hot. It’s chilly, coming out of the upper atmosphere. I cannot complain since it keeps the mosquitoes away. The little bastards cannot fly in this wind.
After several months of bitter cold, we have entered mosquito season. We had nearly a month without them because of the snow. And the frogs. From the beginning of May, even with snow on the ground, you could hear the frogs out there in the night, singing. Where there are frogs, there are mosquito larvae being eaten. Once the singing slowed down, the mosquitoes got thick again.
The nice thing about how we remember things is that our short memories keep us sane. In the dead of winter, you don’t remember the keening whine and sting of mosquitoes buzzing your face. In the summer, you don’t remember how your toes ache and then go numb driving in -40 degree weather. Yet somehow we trade one for the other over and over.
I don’t mind living up here in the mountains with our two seasons: winter and mosquitoes. I lived through this for so many years that it makes sense to me. I remember living in the Front Range of Colorado, suburbia, cities, that strange climate that brings triple digit heat waves for months in the summer and in the winter only a few snow storms (if any at all). I have seen mosquitoes in January while walking with the kids along the Poudre River trail. That just didn’t seem fair. It wasn’t like it was a proper winter. No snow. No sledding. Just everything being brown and chilly. Leafless trees and cold wind. From November until May. Then that hot, oppressive summer air, humid. Humming with the buzzing of cicadas in their treetops. June bugs latching onto your face at night. And yes, those blood sucking bastard mosquitoes too. Can’t leave them out. The worst was the yellowjackets.
And that heat that got into everything, even when you had air conditioning you could feel it somehow.
I don’t mind being here. The wind blows. We have bugs. But we have secluded mountain trails that are absent scads of hikers and their dogs and squawking kids. When you hike here, there’s no repeated “On your left” which could mean your certain doom if you don’t heed the warnings. Sure, there are bears. And mountain lions. But even Boulder has those. The moose leave you alone if you give them wide berth.
Today it was cool and windy. I grilled food drop chicken on the free Weber grill I got a few weekends ago. I made mashed potatoes and salad with food drop stuff too. The world is not in a good place right now, and our “leaders” are using misdirection and keeping the fuckery going instead of actually fixing it. Before long, I won’t even be able to afford to leave town. Gas just hit $5 a gallon here, and that is a minimum of 4 gallons just to get to the next town.
I might as well get settled in and get some writing done.
Wendigo Mountain 