Hot summer months and moth kisses

Beautiful side road I stopped at

Raining in the sky

Greetings from the exceedingly hot, sweltering land from which I live---the desert, where it gets very hot, and very cold and very windy. And that's pretty much it.

 

Outside, it's so humid, so hot, so sticky that everything feels quiet, subdued, and tired, as if the heat is weighing everything down.

The plants dare not grow.

The grass dare not green.

The sky dare not rain.

The people dare not step too far out of the shade.

When I walk by the alfalfa fields, I can smell the plants baking in their own juices. It's a good smell, but a hot smell, the smell of July.

Yes, July. Watermelon, ice cream, popsicles, water fights, heat,  hot dogs, family reunions, and hot toes on hot sand. A month, where the cornfields shoot up. When the weeds suddenly grow taller, when gardens wither, and the grass that was so green in springtime is now brown, and crunchy.

July---a month of reckoning, when the plants you planted in spring, live, or die. A time when everyone is trying to squeeze in as much summer fun as they can before they can't.

July---a month full of wonderfully, delicious puffy clouds, that look like whipped cream, and vivid blue sky behind them. Then in the evenings  there's the tantalizing smell of rain, a few drops hit the ground before they evaporate, and instead of water on the ground, you watch the watercolor clouds, melting in the sky as the sun sets.

Today the sky even looks hot. The blue sky looks gray, and sultry. In the distance I can see some blossoming clouds. Maybe it will rain.

But probably not.

 Maybe we'll get a thunderstorm.

Or maybe not.

So. It's been a while, me writing in here. True.

If every time I thought about writing some tidbit on here counted, then I'd have a blog post everyday---whole journals full of conversations, fragments of thoughts or funny things that happened. 

But I somehow found myself writing in my books, just wanting to get this chapter done, this edit tweaked. 

This week I finished formatting my hard copy, and ebook copy of my last installment of my fantasy book. And yesterday, I ordered the last proof for my book, The Last Summoning. If all looks well when I get it, It will be finally out! 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/455849

I have it on pre-release at smashwords. But I officially haven't set a release date, until the book arrives at my house, and I know that it is absolutely ready. 

Yeah, I know it's a far cry from having it out in February like I planned. I had big dreams. But sometimes, when you're working with creative stuff, with words, with art or time limits you put on yourself sometimes have to be taken away, and you have to do the best you can with what you have.

Now I can officially roll up my sleeves and feel justified to work on rewrites for my next book, The Unsame Ones.

Actually, I went to do just that, several times. But, I had this nagging feeling that I was neglecting this blog, and needed to drop by, and say hello before I get too involved writing there, to write here.

So that is what I'm doing.
Dropping by to say hi.

My room is nicely cooled, despite it's hot as heckazoid out there. But the air conditioner is a bit blowy, and a bit noisy. So I have a love, hate relationship with it. It groans, and creaks, and acts very sorry for itself having to do so much work, keeping me cool.  And, believe me, it is a lot of work to keep my hot upstairs room cool.

When I'm sick of the air conditioner blowing on me, and my fingers get cold, I shut it off, until I feel hot again, which doesn't take very long. If I had my druthers, I'd just rather it be cool enough for me to have my window open, and have the fresh air blow into my room.

Ah, but alas, windows open around here are very dangerous, especially if they have no screens. Which my didn't for a very long time, until I got creative, and made one for my window.

Why are they dangerous, you ask?

I'll tell you.

Because.

Because of the the moths.

Oh, the moths.

They have been a plague this year.

Terrible.

Sticky.

Gross creatures.

I can't stand them.

At the start of the summer if a door or a window was left open just a crack, in they'd come in torrents, swirls, and dusty clouds. In they'd come, to bounce and flutter, and flap against the light.

And if the lights were flicked off, then they'd migrate to the computer screen, and if the computer screen was flicked off, then it was the TV they'd haunt.

Oh, the nasty little boogers.

How I loath them.

They hide in the flowerpots by the door in the day time, and any place they can get themselves into, folded carefully into the doorframes, only to fall out when you open the door, and push into the house like gray, fluttery vapors behind your back, unwelcome as smelly smoke.

 Yug.

How I dislike them.

For so many reasons!

They wake me up at night---buzz into me when I'm sleeping soundest.

They make me sneeze, and my nose swell up.

They poop long brown lines all over the window.

They attack you, seriously! The other night, one bumped into me, and decided to crawl into my hair. I brushed it out, but still it came at me.

This was war. 

I watched for it. I waited until it landed. 

I grabbed the nearest object, and smacked it against the wall.

Down went the moth leaving a powdery film on the wall, next to the spot where I had just recently smashed a giant spider, and it's legs stuck to the wall.

 I had won.

But can one win against torrents of moths?

I don't know.

I tried putting a flashlight over a bowl of water, to see if the moths would come to the light, and drown in the dish.

I waited, and watched.

But it didn't work.

They knew somehow this light was different. So they did not come. Not a one.

The only thing that works against them is a flyswatter. And we use flyswatters quite regularly on the critters.Especially in the bathroom, because that's where all the moths seeping into the house eventually to end up. About once a week, I sweep up the floor littered in moths and moth dust. 

Ahchooo!!!

Sneeze!

Sniff..

Curse of the moths. Did I ever tell you that I'm allergic to them?

Too bad moth dust wasn't something like gold, or glitter, or valuable in some way. Too bad it didn't make you fly. If this was the case, I think I would be a pretty wealthy woman.

Bottled moth dust. 1,000 a jar. Or better yet. Bottled moths.

Think of a happy thought, and away you go! Just sprinkle a little moth dust on you.

The way they scatter their dust in our house, bumping into the lights, my whole family would be floating all the time.

For all my loathing of the dirty beasties, my cute little niece makes up for it in her love of them.  She likes to pick up the moths and hold them and look at their wings, legs and eyes. She calls them "Moffins." She squeals, and laughs, and says, "Look, A Moffin, a Moffin!"

            The other day I was tending her, and she found a dead moth. So I picked it up for her and let her hold the moffin. I turned my attention to something else, and when I gazed back at my nice, she was licking her lips, making a face with powdery, gray, mossy, moth dust stuck to her tongue, with the moth crumpled in her fist. 

           I thought she had eaten the wings, and decided that it didn't taste so great.

Later, when I was telling her mom of this event, I found out, that my niece wasn't trying to eat it, I guess she likes to kiss them.

            Yum. 

         Moth kisses. 

Now that I've rambled on about moths, which I had no intention of doing, I'm thinking I better just stop, before I start on about the spiders that have moved in and have been made plentiful from the bounty of moths. I think I'll just leave this post where it i---random and weird as it seems.

            I hope your summer has been filled with---not moths, with happy moments and good adventures. 

Cheers,
Steph

Below are some pictures I felt like sharing with ya all, mostly from the last months or so.

Can you spot the bird. My sister and I were in the store when we spotted a bird that had flown in. We told someone about it, and they were very aware of it. Poor little thing.  I hope they were able to get it back out.

My niece can braid hair like a pro

On our way back from a trip, my mom and I stopped to take pictures of this forgotten piece of country, with at tree growing out of a barrel.

One of my cute little nieces

Groucho Marx

Love old barns. Wish this one was mine. :)

My sister and I built this saddle holder. It doesn't look like much, but I'm pretty proud of it.

My sister's new baby, Trooper.

Mommy and baby

Bunny cat

I went to stick my hand in this nest to check for eggs and was surprised to find this little critter, Charlotte, weaving her magic web over it. 

Then I found several more Charlottes

And another one. Actually, I think they are called Ogre spiders.

My niece and I decided to check out a favorite nesting spot of our rogue hen Houdini, that keeps getting out. 

 

About 40 eggs in all.

Another golden hour

Reflections

Fun patterns

Raining in the sky

So I was wading in this pool with my niece until I came across these leechy looking things hugging the rocks.