Mosquitoes and Mowing

I like mowing grass, even though we have way too much of it. So I keep plowing into the woods to cut more. I know I'm just creating more work for myself, but I guess that must mean I like it.

Cutting the grass does help by removing some of the places that mosquitoes can hang out. And I'm pretty sure I don't like mosquitoes.

Minnesota is well known for mosquitoes. We have an established "season" that goes from late spring to early fall. So as short as summer is, and as much as we relish its limited duration, if summer in Yin, then mosquitoes are definitely Yang.

The only place I've ever been that The Biters are worse is Fort Yukon, Alaska. I made the mistake at the start of The Season there of driving the 4-wheeler out through the woods to a place along the shore of the Yukon River. I came back with welts all over my forehead. The next time out I wore one of those nets over the top of my head and had lots of DEET.

There must be something in the biology of mosquitoes that says they thrive in a place that has very cold winters and relatively hot summers. And I wonder why they even exist, given their place in the food chain.  But at the Fort, Bentley was fond of saying "Mosquitoes gotta eat too".

Anyway, I've started to think about adding more logs to the cabin. I got an old used door for 20 bucks, but to use it, the walls will need to be higher. And if the walls are higher there will need to be a roof because it would look funny without one.

Last summer I ran out of dead trees of a suitable size for house logs. I also ended up with a really good log that's really too heavy to lift. I figured out yesterday that it was from a Norway Pine, and all of the other logs I've used are Jack Pine. Must be they have different densities. Nearly all of the Jack Pine trees around the house are in some stage of deterioration, and it must be a bug infestation. So I think I might as well cut down enough Jack Pine to finish the cabin walls. The trees that are most healthy looking are either Norway's or spruce. And the spruce seem eager to fill in where the Jack Pine have eventually fallen down.

[Technical note:  jack pine density is subscribed to be about 29 pounds per square foot, and red (Norway) pine is about 32.  For that Norway log to feel so much heavier, it's probably due to moisture content.  The bark is still stuck on there pretty good, so it probably wasn't dead and drying for very long.]