cottage blather

The ringer on our cottage phone isn't working, so Jeff
started to take it apart to figure out what was wrong.
(Photo by Jeff)


Mosquitos love me.

Jeff and I will be on a hiking trail in Algonquin Park, and I will be covered in at least half an inch of Muskol on every exposed square inch of skin with Jeff blissfully free of Deet, and the bugs will still go after me. Even when he is bitten, he rarely notices. Me, I tend to swell up when a mosquito just looks at me.

In late spring, however, insects tend not to be that picky. while I was working on a Market Watch column yesterday afternoon, Jeff was out in the forest, clearing a small area in preparation for construction of our new cabin. When he emerged several hours later, he was closely followed by a cloud of blackflies. Even after he removed his work boots and left them on our cottage deck, the blackflies still hovered around the boots, as if they could not quite understand that the owner of the obviously tempting-smelling boots were no longer wearing them.

Disturbing and fascinating at the same time, really.

Thankfully, the bugs don't seem to be nearly as bad out near the water; we had our lunch there this afternoon. My arms are much better then they were during our last visit. For one thing, I find that I can read for longer periods. Since arriving Friday afternoon, I have read the following:

- last half of Rodzina by Karen Cushman (on loan from my sister Ruth)

-Different Dragons by Jean Little (on loan from my sister Ruth)

- first half of A Prayer For Owen Meany by John Irving. Not having anticipated how much I would be able to read here, I did not bring enough reading material so had to scrounge through the cottage shelves.

No moose this time, but I've noticed quite a few tiny toads hopping about, and a lot of hummingbirds squabbling around the feeders. Hummingbirds are beautiful to look at, but they are nasty wee things when it comes to sharing.

Jumped in the lake after my sauna this afternoon, more on impulse than plan. I figured that if my arms seized up, Jeff would pull me out. Of course I never warned him that I was going in, but I could see him working on his laptop in the boathouse so figured he would hear the splash. The water was pretty cold (!), but not nearly as cold as during ice out. I was in and out pretty quick. :-)

Though my arms are improving, keyboard typing is still difficult so I am using ViaVoice. Keeping up with e-mail continues to be a challenge; there are currently over 600 e-mails in my in-box, and this number does not include the spam messages that have already been filtered out! :-( I am gradually working through these, but it seems that more come in than I can keep up with. Even answering a simple e-mail with a "Sorry, I have tendinitis but will answer your e-mail as soon as possible" form e-mail takes about five minutes if I don't use the keyboard.

Will be heading home in a few hours. Our friend Helen is arriving tomorrow!

(This entry was written with ViaVoice, a voice recognition program, which sometimes has its own sense of humor. Please forgive any spelling or grammar quirks which Debbie has missed while editing. Thank you. )

June/2003 comments: Read | Post | LJ