Lazy Summer Post

Now that it's high summer here (and I haven't drowned in the night in yet another pouring thunderstorm), here are some pictures I took Sunday.

The grass by the path south into the little maples is getting long. (I went out and mowed after I took pictures.)

Inside the little maples it's cool and shady and absolutely zinging with mosquitoes. I could barely stand still long enough to take two pictures, and then I swatted five in two slaps.This is the kind of deep shade (and mosquito activity) I grew up in. All summer I used to wear jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and Deep Woods Off mosquito repellent. I never came back to school with a tan.

Just past the little maples you pop back out into the bright sun. But there are so many mosquitoes, they don't care. They just keep chasing and biting you.

This picture is looking south, before I get to the loop path.

I can't believe the goldenrod on the loop is this tall already. If you click on the picture to see the large version, the spiky grass bits are reed canarygrass, Phalaris arundinacea. Canarygrass (all one word) likes wet soil and will grow over seven feet tall.I don't really like it when the grass gets that high. I guess I fear lions in the bush or something.

A lot of the loop either has standing water on it, or else is brown squooshy mud covered with deer tracks. Can't stop to take photos! Mosquitoes will eat me! This shot is at the end of the loop looking north towards the third photo.

After I took all these pictures, I went out and mowed the whole path again twice around, as well as the yard around the house. Then I had a shower, drank about nine gallons of lemonade, and complained about my wrists hurting on Twitter.

Now I need to go fling my things into a heap and get ready for Origins.