Heat Wave

               To escape the hazy, hot and humid wave in our New Jersey suburb we drove out to Sussex. Yes it is cooler out here –by about 5 degrees—outdoors. Indoors here is hotter since the cottage welcomes sunlight all morning. The only remedy is to jump in the lake. But today the lake, basking for an entire week in heat, feels like a warm tub; and there are no waves. No breeze to make any kind of wave but heat. I speculate that fish caught here today may already be half baked. At least the few cool spots I swim through are refreshing. Real cooling happens only when you get out of the water and sit in a wet bathing suit. Still, it’s much more tolerable than the 20 minutes I spent weeding and wilting in my garden this morning.  

                My garden! I am flattering it to call that plot of earth a garden this year. The zucchini borers finished off one plant before it produced a single squash. And each time my string bean plants recover from an attack, a groundhog finds his or her way past, under or through the fence to eat it down to the stalk. They ate the leaves off the other two zucchini plants too, making their production questionable. Most summers, we can count on our garden to supply lettuce and arugula for a nightly salad, this year other creatures have enjoyed it.

                At least the small garden by the lake is supplying salad greens and it gave us an abundance of snap peas before the heat wave finished off the plants. We are expecting tomatoes soon from both gardens. Groundhogs eschew tomatoes.

Heat Wave

In the lake is the only place to be today. Anywhere else is just too hot. Floating around, looking back toward land, I find that Nature has set up a light show. As ripples roll toward the shoreline, the crest of each is reflected onto a tall tree standing where land meets water. Curving lines of light continually cascade down the trunk, making it look like an upended movie marquee. I wonder if the first person to animate the lights of Time Square got the idea from just such a natural occurrence.

That tree affords the only shade on the nearby shore so I leave the water to sit behind it and attempt—again—to paint the water. I’m getting a bit better at it, seeing three colors—pale amber, slate blue, and a deeper blue-green-gray—and the crisscross pattern of the waves. I begin to block out the weeds on the shore but I have to drop my brush and slap my ankles—repeatedly. Seems I’ve either disturbed some tiny, biting insects or arrived just in time for their lunch. They refuse to stop so I retreat to the dock. No more painting that view for me today!

I rub my ankles. They still itch from a previous attack four days prior in Montclair. I had begun to water a corner of my garden when I felt a piercing stab in my right ankle. As I jumped back there were two stabs on the left. I looked down to see a swarm of tiny yellowjacket wasps. The water must have jolted their unseen nest. I ran for the house. Armed with a can of insect spray my husband made certain they wouldn’t attack again. I truly prefer to respect all nature and hate having to kill, but in the past I’ve had allergic reactions to such attacks. Besides, they had declared themselves my enemy.

I wish insects did not find my ankles so attractive.