Screw you summer...

Was it only six weeks ago that I was bemoaning the spring weather and wishing for summer? Now, I can't do anything but gripe about the heat. The last few weeks in the canyon have been absolute scorchers, with temperatures in the mid 90s a good deal of the time and much more humidity than I can remember from my previous two summers here. It makes for miserable working hours for my husband, and because it's too hot to go play on the badlands, it also makes for three hyper dogs. Ugh.

In desperation to beat the heat and get the dogs some exercise, I took the pound up the mountain. I figured we would find cooler temperatures and a small piece of the Big Horn National Forest in which to frolic to our hearts content. Instead, we found cows or tourists galore in all of our favorite places and some seriously muggy conditions. I finally found a good spot off the old U.S. Highway 16 and let the dogs out of the truck to run off some of that energy. Ten minutes later we were all back in the pickup headed for home. The dogs got too hot before they got any real steam wore off and I tired of defending my succulent flesh from the hordes of hungry mosquitoes. I went to bed with itchy arms and ankles where a few of the dirty buggers had managed to find a place to snack on my skin.

The next morning, I woke up with two large, weepy blister like bumps on my arm and a surrounding patch of my arm that was red and swollen. What I thought were mosquito bites are apparently something else entirely and they itch like the dickens. I can't decide if they are spider bites or if I ran afoul of some hazardous plant while wandering through the foliage up the road. But since I can't shoot silken web from my finger tips, it was probably just a boring old mountain spider and nothing radioactive. Dang...no superhero movie deals in my future.

Now I'm hot and itchy and my allergies are going haywire. I've had it with bugs and sun and out-of-control plants. So I'm making fall my official favorite season. Screw you summer!