SOUNDS TO FALL ASLEEP BY

A month ago we were in the middle of a plague.  The ten plagues God set on Egypt to convince Pharaoh to let his people go had nothing on the mosquito population we were enduring at the end of June.  It was bad.

So bad, in fact, that I had a wish come true.

For years and years I had wanted to equip our yard, with its naturally occurring mosquito breeding ground, with a high tech remedy to destroy the hordes that Mother Nature is so generous with.

 I’m not a fan of spraying poison into the environment, so that solution wasn’t going to happen.  They say that pouring a little gas on their breeding pond will asphyxiate the nymphs, but I’m not a fan of having a flammable pond on the premises, and besides … do you know what gas costs these days?  Face book was full of testimonials about how a mix of stale beer, blue mouthwash and Epsom salts would drive the bugs away, but really?  Who lets beer go stale?  The alternative was to spray our bodies down with probably poisonous, probably flammable, and most assuredly stinky-as-stale-beer insect repellant and hope for the best.

For years my dream has been a bug zapper. 

Now, just for the record, normally I’m a fairly nice person.  I’m the live-and-let-live type.  Oh sure, I have lower tolerances for things like yappy little dogs and rude people, but I don’t derive pleasure from fantasies of their electrocution.  It’s different with mosquitoes, though: I want them all to die painful, horrible deaths.  My apologies to everyone whom I’ve offended with this hate speech.

I don’t know what tipped the scales this year.  Like I said, I’ve wanted a bug zapper for ages, but I could never sell the idea to the guy who would be expected to install it.  Maybe his change of heart came after inhaling one too many mosquitoes, but suddenly he wanted one too.  It was one of the most instant purchases I’ve ever made; there would be no backing out.

Who knew the difficulty level of installing a bug zapper would be so high?  First there was lengthy discussion on where it should go.  I said mid yard and he said closer to the house.  I won because the power source from a decommissioned well was already in place.  Secondly, a pole had to be erected.  That was the part that had held this operation off for years.  I left it completely in the man’s hands: he chose drill stem for the job and commenced fancying it up with ornamental welding and artwork.  An entire generation of mosquitoes died of old age waiting for his masterpiece to be finished.

The installation of the pole was another adventure.  He drilled his hole only to tangle the auger in wire and hose from the old well.  We unraveled that mess and moved over two feet.  The ground was so saturated we ended up with mini well, a third move was required.  Once the hole was ready we discovered how heavy twenty feet of fancy drill stem, and how inaccurate a wife’s hand signals can be when guiding pole delivering tractors.  (Ah!  More of those lovey dovey memories!)

Even after the pole was planted there were adjustments to be made … being as he had topped it off with a weathervane we thought it would be a nice touch if south actually pointed south.

By the time all this had been accomplished the yard was a mess of tractor tire ruts requiring multiple loads of topsoil to level it out.  Some folks would see this as a mess but I consider it a bonus.  I have claimed the whole area as my newest garden area, planted two shrubs, and told him to be on the lookout for a big flat rock.

But the sweetest thing is that the bug zapper works, just like I had always dreamed of.  The first couple mornings the dirt beneath the light was strewn with the carcasses of many many mosquitoes.  By day three the wire mesh that delivers the voltage was full of baked on bug bodies.  It took a few days for the wind to knock them loose, but it didn’t seem to slow down the death toll.

It’s been a month now.  The mosquito population is way down, but so is the stagnant water they deliver their babies in.  Also, their natural predators, the dragon flies, are building up their population.  There’s no way to tell which of these factors has had the most impact, all I know is that life is much more pleasant now.  And it’s not only the freedom from flying hordes of blood suckers that makes me happy, it’s also the faint bzzt bzzt that I hear as I drift off to sleep, thinking to myself “And another one bites the dust!”

                                         BEST LAID PLANS

It seems like we’ve being planning forever.  While other folks were getting ready for their Christmas party season last year a committee I serve on was in the beginning stages of Canada Day celebrations 2018.  If you aren’t on the ball in October you don’t get the grant to help pay for the fireworks.  If you aren’t hiring the music in November your party is going to be pretty quiet in July, and if you don’t have your meal provider booked by Christmas you better be prepared to bring picnic lunches for the crowd.   We had accomplished all of these things by January 1^st; we took the next three months off.

When the second stage of planning began in the spring we had community organizations offering to partner with us to make the day an even greater success.  The local firemen,  already a part of the parade and managers of the fireworks display every year, came up with the idea to sponsor a junior firemen’s rodeo for the kids too.  The local arts board let us know that they were hiring a magician/balloon artist for a show in the afternoon.  The local Lion’s Club confirmed that they would bring their dunk tank again and line up a bunch of town characters agreeable to being dunked.  The Knights of Columbus would cook breakfast.  There would be a slow pitch tournament going on all day.  The Recreation Board would take care of a beer garden. 

It was going to be a very full day!

The big day drew ever closer, and once again it became obvious to me no matter how well, or long, you’ve been planning your party, the details at the end seem to multiply every time you check your ‘to do’ list. 

Our committee runs the concession booth throughout the day so we needed to order food and find enough volunteers to man the shifts.  We needed a parade marshal (a fancy name we give to the guy who gets everything from kids on ponies or bikes lined up with antique tractors and modern fire trucks), we needed a stage set up for the magician in the afternoon and the band at night, we needed to have a place for the guy who’s coming to pitchfork fondue steaks for supper.  We needed tables set up for breakfast and supper.  We had left over sparkle tattoos from Canada 150 – we needed volunteer tattoo artists to decorate kids with glitter.  We needed to set up our shade canopy so the people selling 50/50 tickets wouldn’t wilt in the sun.

And the magician had asked for a camper parked close by the stage to make his act preparation easier.  And we had to decide if we were sticking with just hamburgers, hot dogs and pop or branch out into the potato chip and jumbo freezie market.  We all had to freeze big chunks of ice to keep the drinks cold. 

The Rec Board wanted the stage for the band in the beer garden but it’s the same stage as the kid’s magician so that couldn’t happen.  We needed candies to toss out from our float in the parade.  Don’t forget the plates and forks for Canada’s birthday cake.  We’d need three different cash floats and a couple checks to pay for food and music at the end of the day.  We’d need to advertise or no one would come.  We’d need a nice clear day for this to all go off without a hitch.

 Mother Nature didn’t get that memo.

The day dawned nice enough.  The weather was perfect as we set up the concession and people enjoyed their pancakes and sausages at the picnic tables.  The canopy was set up, the magician’s trailer was parked, the beer garden was ready to go when their permit kicked in, the firemen had opted to hold their rodeo in the hockey rink, the fire truck pulled in and filled the Lion’s dunk take with nice cold water.  It was all good.

As the parade formed up, so too did a very menacing cloud formation across the western horizon.  The parade went fine; the brooding darkness grew exponentially.  Phones started making that sound that tells you the Weather Network has something special to tell you.  I didn’t have time to look, the magician was busy telling me about stopping to take pictures of funnel clouds about 40 miles away from our outdoor festivities.  I didn’t like the sounds of that. 

For a short time we thought maybe the storm would slide to the north, but it didn’t.  At approximately 2:20 CST we were all scrambling for cover, where we would remain trapped for a good 15 minutes while rain and hail poured down; little pockets of humans under random roofs, bonding with our fellow men on Canada day.  Two committee members and I held a mini meeting as the storm let up – we were on to Plan ‘B’!  The best plan we made turned out to be having the curling rink as a back up venue.

Volunteers can move mountains (and beer garden tables and outdoor stages and gigantic steak fryers) even in slippery, wet, muddy conditions.  Everything went to the curling rink except for the concession trailer – on the up side, the sun came out, the ball players were back on the field, the beer garden tables could double as supper tables, the band was happy to be moved inside in case it rained again.  On the down side the Lion’s dunk tank was drained and abandoned, the sparkle tattoos were put away, the shows and supper were put about an hour behind schedule, and freezie pop sales plummeted.   As an added inconvenience my phone ran out of juice.  It is possible this saved my sanity – there can be no consulltaion process when you can’t consult.  We all just had to deal with our own dilemmas and do the best we could.

 In the end, it was a pretty good day.  We dealt with our glitches, rolled with the punches, bounced back from each crises, and made it work.  Heck, even the fireworks went off with a bang, which is what you want with fireworks.

I hope lots of people took pictures; I couldn’t – my phone was dead. 

It’s been a few days no to do wrap up; the borrowed things have all been returned, hopefully everyone has been thanked (if not, Thank You!), the 50/50 ticket has been drawn and the prize awarded, the cash has been counted and deposited, and I have lots of info written down in my notebook to keep in mind for next year. 

That’s correct: we’re back to planning again.