Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Dragonfly Companions

It's been a while since I turned the radio on in the morning, simply because the news always sucks so much.
Today I made the mistake of turning it on; of course the first thing I hear is that some other idiot has blown herself up and taken 30 people with her.
I just about turned the damn thing off immediately. But since it had been a while, I persevered. Soon it was announced that an upcoming guest would be talking about dragonflies, so I left the radio on.


On my walk last night there were so many big blue dragonflies (called darners; according to the guest, their tail ends resemble darning needles) that I was quite amazed. The air was full of them! It's a good year for dragonflies, the guest said, because we've had so much heat.

A few weeks ago, before the ditches were cut, I noticed hordes of them flying along just over the long grasses beside me as I walked along the road you see above. The interesting thing was that when I would stop, so would they; they'd alight on top of the long grass. And when I'd start again, so would they. I did it a few times just to make sure I wasn't imagining things.

They probably do it because wherever there is a warmblooded body, the mosquitoes are drawn. But I prefer to think the dragonflies are my little companions because they enjoy my company. As my sister Joan would say: "Hehe."