It's driving me buggy!

I'm at a loss to explain where my fascination with dragonflies originated. It's just there and has been for some time. The local squadrons of dragonflies have diminished over the past couple of weeks. At least, I haven't been seeing as many as I did last month. That's unfortunate, because we've had yet another hatch of deer flies. Enough so that I'm putting off doing some outdoor chores until my new bug-proof hoody arrives.

dragonfly on patio screen

Photo by J. Harrington

I've tried wearing one of my "fishing" shirts that was factory treated with permethrin, but the material doesn't breathe and in the weather we've been having I kept getting overheated even if I was doing little more than driving the tractor. Supposedly, the hoody "hooded-jacket" is breathable and will help wick away moisture (sweat). I've ordered on, hoping for the best, and will report back after the first few wearings. If, as some of these things sometimes go, the arrival of a breathable, bug-proof hoody promptly assures the arrival of cooler, less humid weather with fewer bugs in evidence, it will have been money well spent.

Of course, I'd much prefer to have sufficient numbers of dragonflies to severely diminish our mosquito and deer fly populations, but I got the next best thing from the Better Half for a Father's Day or Birthday present. Cindy Crosby, whose blog, Tuesdays in the Tallgrass, is linked in the "Other Paths" sidebar here, has written a book: Chasing Dragonflies: A Natural, Cultural, and Personal History. That was one of the presents that I received for a recent occasion and I've just started to read and enjoy it (available through Northwestern University Press). I'm hoping that, after I've finished reading Crosby's book, I'll be more able to identify the dragonfly pictured above along with several others.

After the Dragonflies

By W. S. Merwin

Dragonflies were as common as sunlight
hovering in their own days
backward forward and sideways
as though they were memory
now there are grown-ups hurrying
who never saw one
and do not know what they
are not seeing
the veins in a dragonfly’s wings
were made of light
the veins in the leaves knew them
and the flowing rivers
the dragonflies came out of the color of water
knowing their own way
when we appeared in their eyes
we were strangers
they took their light with them when they went
there will be no one to remember us

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