While everyone around me basks in the heat, I'm grumbling about it as every one of the sun-lovers grumbles about the cold.  Why do I love winter?  I dress in layers so am able to make myself comfortable.  I'm able to go out whenever I want to enjoy my favorite snow sports.  During the summer, I venture out for a hike only when it is cool in the morning or the evening.  The rest of the day I am hibernating inside.  The part that I grumble about the most is the bugs.  I thought those little blood-sucking mosquitoes were the worst last summer but there is something even more annoying this year.

Midges.  Millions of them.  There were so many that I've been thinking that a swarm of bees had landed in one of the treetops.  It wasn't bees making that humming noise.  It was swarms of mosquito relatives hatching at the lake.  There were so many that I had to spray down the side of the house with the garden hose, just to get into the door.  If I wouldn't have done that, hundreds would have found their way inside.
 
When I was outside, I couldn't breathe in without covering up my nose.  Each breath would have sucked those 'buggers' right up the nostrils.  Yuck.  The exterior walls of the homes along my road are covered with insects.

It was a good thing that the bugs were not out at the playground today.  We found some peace and could enjoy taking a breath of fresh air without having six legged intruders lodge up our nasal cavities.  How many more days to winter?