Spring has sprung (insert eyeroll) in New Hampshire, and, according to Ogden Nash, re: his “The Passionate Pagan and the Dispassionate Public” (you can read it for yourself; I’m not his agent)*, it’s absoid. You bet it is, and here’s why:
After spending about five months indoors looking out at the world through icicle window bars and having one’s nose hairs freeze in the garage-to-house dash, the sunshine and milder weather (short term, mind you: seasoned Granite Staters don’t put away their parkas until the end of June), lures the housebound to emerge (or, in Nashian style, emoige) into the verdant warmth of daffodils and lilacs, recovering lawns and capering wildlife. Ah, to breathe in that sweet, floral new beginning! It's all too beautiful, as the old hippie song goes.
But it’s a trap. While humans were cocooned indoors, black flies were doing the dirty and gestating. They’re the first blood parasites to emoige in the spring, even before mosquitoes. And they swarm. Try planting a flower bed in May.
We lived for over thirty years with that itchy reality. Good riddance and sorry about our choices, kids (who live in Los Angeles and have other plagues to deal with).
So, writing from Florida, I can confidently walk through our gorgeous neighborhood free of black flies. Those gators and poisonous snakes in the driveway are easier to see. Winning!
*Oh, alright, you lazybones:
Spring is what winta
Always gozinta.
Spring is sprung,
the grass is riz,
I wonder where the boidies is.
They say the boid is on the wing.
But that's absoid.
The wing is on the boid.