Hot Lake Wichita Park Walk With Mosquitoes

On this second Tuesday of May the outer world at my location is super humid. And hot. Real HOT.

Feeling the need for heat, and hoping for a cooling breeze, I drove to Lake Wichita Park for a walk around the only mountain for miles and miles in any direction.

I read this morning that the recent rains have risen the local lake levels. Such was noted upon arrival at the Lake Wichita Park parking lot. The tide was not out nearly as far as the last visit, a couple weeks ago.

Work continues on the expansion of the Lake Wichita Veterans Memorial, due to be finished by Memorial Day, which is the 29th of the current month.

Several guys were busy working on the memorial, seemingly impervious to the blazing sun.

I walked around the mountain and then headed north to a line of trees which are on both sides of a creek ditch.

I was on high alert when in this shaded wooded zone, on the lookout for slithering reptiles. I saw none, but did manage to get a whopper of a mosquito bite. 

A trail meanders through this wooded zone, with a couple little bridge crossings, such as what you see above. Eventually I came to a disc golf launch pad and realized this trail had been built for the disc golf course.

Seems like it would be just a tad too challenging to be throwing a disc in a wooded zone, hoping to hit a target.

I do not see many disc golfers at the Lake Wichita Park disc golf course, unlike I see at Lucy Park, where one always sees a lot of disc golfers.

More storming is on the weather menu during the course of this week. I hope that comes with cooler temperatures and a drop in humidity...

A Labor Day Morning Swim In The Rain With Mosquito Bites

This Labor Day morning I was surprised when I unblocked my view of the outer world to look out my bedroom window to see blue sky had been replaced by gray and droplets of wet were falling, covering the ground in water.

So, I had myself a really fine time swimming in the rain this morning.

As I pushed my way through water I saw flashes of light in the distance and heard thunder rumbling. But, it was a long ways away, so I had no worry about getting electrocuted by a lightning strike.

I do worry sometimes that I might get electrocuted by the pool's underwater lights. Something just seems not right about pools having  underwater lights.

The past week, give or take a day, I have been getting buzzed my mosquitoes whilst swimming. Most of these days of getting skeeter buzzed I have gotten one bite, always in the same location, resulting in a big red bump on my right cheek. That's the cheek to the right of my nose, just to be clear.

Speaking of getting mosquito bites in an unfortunate location. In Gar the Texan's extensive coverage of his most recent honeymoon, last month in Jamaica, Gar reported that he'd suffered multiple Jamaica mosquito attacks. Gar claims that Texas mosquitoes have never had a taste for him, but the Jamaican variant would not stop feasting on him.

Gar the Texan further shared the fact that many of the Jamaican mosquito bites were in nether regions of a delicate nature, regions with important honeymooning functions, which rendered the honeymooning painful at times.

What with the weather outside having the potential to become frightful I will have to be flexible with my Labor Day Picnic plans.

Later today blue sky is predicted to return, along with an extremely humid HOT high of 98.

A Fisherman Getting His Feet Wet In Fosdick Lake With Bright Orange Wildflowers

Apparently it was a good day to go fishing on Fosdick Lake today, even though eating a fish one caught in Fosdick Lake might turn out to be a fatal mistake.

There were several fishermen and fisherwomen fishing in Fosdick Lake today.

The fisherman you see in the picture had his seat sitting in the water, with his feet submerged in the toxic Fosdick brew.

I figure if there are warning signs telling people not to eat the Fosdick fish, not to swim in the Fosdick water and to not even launch a boat in the toxic Fosdick brew, that dipping ones feet in the water might not be a good idea.

I wonder if Fosdick Lake is one of Fort Worth's West Nile Virus mosquito breeding grounds slated for spraying? It seems that that would add even more toxicity to the already toxic Fosdick brew.

Even though we are having ourselves a Mosquito Crisis in North Texas, I have yet to see my first Texas mosquito, let alone get bit by one.

Maybe the unseasonably, unreasonably chilly temperatures will put a damper on the rampant North Texas mosquito breeding.

It was barely in the 80s when I drove to Oakland Lake Park, at noon, to walk around Fosdick Lake. Now, hours later my computer based temperature monitoring device is telling me it is only 89 degrees in the outer world at my location.

Are we done with 100 degree days for the year? I hope so.

Even though the prime time of the Texas wildflower season is long past, there is still some color coloring up the outdoors in Texas, like the bright orange flower I stared at today located near the south end of Fosdick Lake.

Betty Jo Bouvier Is Being Eaten Alive By Sedro-Woolley Mosquito Bugs

I saw on Facebook that Betty Jo Bouvier is suffering from severe mosquito attacks.

Betty Jo Bouvier lives in Sedro-Woolley, Washington.

Before Woolley was added to Sedro, Sedro was a solo town.

Around 1885 Mortimer Cook moved his family from Santa Barbara, California to a new home and store that was waiting for them in Washington's Skagit Valley. Soon, Cook let it be known he was going to name his new town "Bug," due to the swarms of mosquitoes.

However, Cook's wife, and other local wives, the Betty Jo Bouviers of their day, protested the idea of naming their new town "Bug." So, Cook decided to name his new town after a type of tree that grew in the Skagit Valley,  using the Spanish word for cedar, which is cedro, and then making the name a little different by changing the 'c' to 's'.

A few years later, in 1889, a railroad builder named Phillip A. Woolley moved to the Sedro zone and built Skagit River Timber & Shingle, starting a company town, named after himself. A couple other towns developed in the Sedro zone. And then, on December 19, 1898 the towns all merged together and became Sedro-Woolley.

I do not know why, more than a century later, the town, which should have been named Bug, still does not have its mosquito population under control.

I think I have mentioned previously that when I lived in the Skagit Valley of Washington not a summer went by where I did not get multiple mosquito bites.

I have no clue why, in bug-infested Texas, I have not once been mosquito bitten, in all my years of exile in this hot humid zone where Texans have succumbed to the mosquito delivered West Nile Virus.

Maybe it is the copious amounts of raw garlic I consume in Texas which thwarts the skeeter bites. I did not consume copious amounts of raw garlic when I lived in Washington. Betty Jo Bouvier may want to amp up her raw garlic consumption to see if that thwarts the swarms of mosquitoes laying waste to her delicate epidermal layer.

It's worth a try.

Pedaling The Gateway Park Mountain Bike Trail Buzzed By A Copter Before Finding Strawberries

Since it was not quite yet 100 degrees, I decided it'd be cooling to ride my bike on the Gateway Park Mountain Bike Trail on my way to Town Talk.

That being the part of the trail before one gets to the roller coaster twisting and turning part. And then pedaling on the paved trail.

I discovered a new area of mountain bike trail that shares trail with the disc golfers. This trail, with two disc golf holes, runs beside a pond covered with green scum for part of the distance,

I can not imagine many disc golfers willing to try to hit the holes that are by the pond covered with green scum, lest they lose their disc in the pond. I had some concerns for myself pedaling beside a green scum covered pond, what with the recent warnings to avoid stagnant ponds that are potential breeding grounds for mosquitoes and the West Nile Virus.

But, the only mosquito like critter I saw today was the thing you see in the picture that looks as if it is trying to push over a Gateway Park light pole.

For some reason a helicopter was buzzing all over the Tandy Hills and Gateway Park and points further to the west. Maybe the helicopter was looking for the latest Gateway Park snake bite victim.

The last time I was at Town Talk I got a case of the best peaches I've had in years. Today I got a case of strawberries. I've not tasted them yet. They are Driscoll's Strawberries from California. I have occasionally had  a semi-good Driscoll's Strawberry.

Now if these had been Ole & Sven's Strawberries, from the Skagit Valley, well, I would know they'd be real good even before my first taste.

The 3rd Morning Of July In Texas Attacked By A Mosquito

The 3rd morning of July has dawned with a clear blue sky, devoid of any clouds, as you can clearly see, looking skyward through the bars of my patio prison cell.

I was attacked and stung by a mosquito yesterday. I believe this is the first time I have been attacked by a mosquito since I have been in Texas.

In Washington during the summer months a summer never passed without multiple mosquito attacks. And usually several deer fly bites suffered whilst hiking in the Cascade Mountains.

I do not know if I have contracted that West or East or whatever it is Nile Disease from yesterday's mosquito bite. I do know I am having strange muscle pains this morning. But no detectable fever. So far.

I think I'll go swimming now and try to forget about all my aches and pains.