Track and Field day took place June 1st and it was a perfect day. Compared to the previous Friday, the weather couldn't have been ordered better if we'd tried. Nearly everyone had a glow to them by the end of the day and the organizing gym teacher was able to scrounge up enough ribbons for almost everyone.
Since then, report cards have gone out, the clasrooms have been cleared, the house cleaned, and most teachers dispersed. My own flight leaves at 2:30pm today. The dogs are packed but have no clue what's about to happen. I wish I'd had the forsight to find Belinda a harness before bringing her South. She's gotten a lot stronger since August.
I've destroyed hundreds of biting bugs with a surpising amount of satisfaction this month. Mosquitoes are the itchiest bites, black flies the bloodiest, and horse flies the most intimidating. On a still day with nothing to blow them clear of a person, you can see, hear, and feel the tornado of them circling you. Through frustrated and constant observations, I've noticed that depending on the time of day, amount of sunlight, and humidity, the predominant fly of that moment seems to change. Following a rain the air clears of everything though, and it's the most refreshing moment.
A friend in town has a cabin away into the bush and we were fortunate enough to be invited out this weekend. Although the bugs continued their above described interactions, the place was truely magical. It's a log cabin outfitted with everything from a wood stove to a live-in red squirrel. They recently put in a sky-light which was really put on display during a magnificent lightning storm Saturday night. At one end of the lake, there's quite a sizeable beaver dam where we all went swimming one afternoon. There were four dogs altogether and although they had their qualms at the start of the walk in, they were best of friends by the end of it.
