Alba, you'll have to join (as a friend in southern Maine did recently) The Maine Black Fly Owners and Breeders Association. But what I want to know, is there a market for the little critters?

Right now it's too cold for mosquitoes, but the rivers are running high and the ditches are overflowing. My road (mostly gravel) is washboarded, rutted and potholed again and my car is not pleased.

On the gardening side, though, I've got thirty-some (it seems to change every counting) pink ladyslippers happily blooming up the high side of the driveway. (We're on a hill.) They're surrounded by star flower, foam flower and false lily-of-th-valley. God planted them, so I can't take credit, and they are only harvested in photographs and cheerful gazing.

The annuals I bought last weekend are NOT in the ground and are looking drowned. Nothing has been planted in the boxes around the side of the deck, etc. cuz they'd wash away.

I'm starting to mildew.

Linn