Like a Bug on a Windshield

I grew up during the space race, watching the progress of civilization on a small black and white television. Radio stations had their own news departments providing news and weather updates at the top of every hour. Reading was still the major source of information, from daily newspapers to weekly reviews. Magazines like Popular Mechanics and Science Digest predicted a utopian future with flying cars, robotic homes and tourists in space. And best of all, it was a golden age of science fiction with new paperbacks showing up at the dime store or the newsstand every week. Oh, and everybody wrote and received lots of letters, making writing a major means of communication. While a nostalgia for that time influences my work, the excitement of the years since has not escaped me. I enjoy Punk Rock and Seattle Grunge; I watch commercial space travel with excitement and interest; I have traded in my old typewriter for a computer keyboard and my postage stamps for an email accoun

Yes, it has been awhile. Things never seem to slow down, even (or especially) when one is trying to get off the grid. Out here in the woods it has been a very rainy spring. The area of our backyard that we had intended to use for our raised bed garden has been under two feet of water for six weeks. We even have a green heron taking up residence. Besides the garden plot, our fire ring has been under water and our wood pile is in the middle of a small lake. We stocked the pond with minnows and goldfish in an attempt to control mosquitoes. I'm sure it helped, but we still have plenty of the bloodsuckers left to make life miserable. Naturally, the heron is eating our fish. Over the weeks we've had a chorus of toads and frogs singing to one another, no doubt mating and laying eggs in the pool. I haven't seen any tadpoles, yet, but that doesn't mean they aren't there. I thought that living up on a hill would make us flood proof, but it hasn't made much differe