THE LAST DAY of JUNE, and SOME UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

Today is another cool day. The temp is barely 19C/66F, and there's a stiff breeze into the bargain. Not that I mind, every day we don't swelter here is one day to the good, but still, I wonder - where the fishflies (Mayflies) are. Here it is, the last day of June, and other than a few hundred of them scattered over a couple of weeks, we're still waiting. And by we, I mostly mean the birds and fish and countless other small creatures who depend on nature's outrageous abundance of these winged protein packets. Where are the teeming hordes that coat the buildings and dim the nighttime signs in town? The annoying midges certainly came on time, and in the expected numbers, but what about the elegant, graceful Mayfiles?

Where are the wind-piled drifts of their short-lived fallen bodies in the parking lots? Why aren't they here in mind-stunning numbers like they do every summer in early-to-mid June? Are they coming late, or not at all? This past winter, we had more cold weather, and much more snow, than I recall from my mere four years of living here, and long-timers confirm it was a bad one, for this area. I remember the long hard freezes I experienced in Alberta always had farmers and ranchers rejoicing because the prolonged deep cold meant a reduction in the grasshopper and other pest populations. I wonder if that's going to happen here. Even if the fishflies do finally arrive, what about my personal favorites, the crickets and the fireflies?


It's already getting late in the season. I've seen discarded eggshells from the second brood of birds, and loose molted feathers stuck at angles in the lawn, like tiny quill pens. Today I put on my jacket and went out for a windy walk in the yard, and stopped to contemplate of the side of my neighbor's house, by the old trellis, where last fall I watched dozens of crickets burying their eggs in the sandy soil. Are you okay down there? I silently asked. Will there be choruses of crickets later this summer? And when the corn is shoulder high again, will there be myriad fireflies rising up from among the stalks to dance against the stars on hot summer nights? Only time and temperature will tell.

CANCEL THE PLUMBER, I THINK I SEE THE PROBLEM

You are really going to love this; it’s one of the coolest things that’s happened to me in a while, and will be a good story to tell at parties! First, I should tell you my little cottage-y house is a real handyman special. I call it the fun house because over many years, several owners have added on, made changes, all according to their own particular idiot-syncrasies. Plus living so close to the lake, I don’t have a basement, just a crawl space, thus the hot water heater is in the hall closet, and the furnace is in the attic. There are places on the floor where a marble might roll, but I’m not sure I want to test that one. Sometimes ignorance is best, and I must say, in the three years I’ve lived here, it hasn’t been too much of a money pit.

Another interesting feature of this place is the big long bathroom that is also home to the stack washer/dryer, and a long counter with double sinks. At some point in the past, the little chrome disks attached to the sink stoppers got removed. I don’t mind looking at the ugly plastic innards too much. I just bought a couple of those rubber stoppers and went on with my life. But yesterday when I was in the bathroom folding laundry, I heard this odd buzzy trill, kind of like what crickets make, only lasting longer, coming from the drain in one of the sinks. Oh great, I thought, how many zeroes is this repair going in have?! I leaned over and listened, rattled the stopper a bit, and it stopped. Whew, maybe it’s just like when the toilet tank runs and you have to come back and jiggle the handle. Then it started again; I rattled again. It stopped. It started, I rattled again, yada yada. Maybe it was just an air bubble in the pipes, so I ran some water. It stopped for good this time, and I finished the laundry, feeling very pleased with myself.

Fast-forward to several hours later, I went back into the bathroom, flipped on the light, and there in the sink was a teeny tiny little cricket! I guess that’s why the sound coming from the drain sounded like a cricket! Evidently he was very operatic, too, since he held his buzzes for so long. How he got all the way from any of the outside doors, past four cats and up into the sink I’ll never know; he was so tiny he couldn't jump out of the sink. How he didn’t get squashed by me rattling the stopper, or get drowned by the sudden cascading flash flood I’ll never know either. Anyway, he was duly caught and released to the night. Now he has a good story to tell at parties, too.



Crickets have four types of song: Calling, courting, aggression, and copulation. Some are the familiar chirps, and one is more of a buzzy trill.