They're back

They’re BackWell they’re here. The weather has been nice up till now, but with the warmth comes the dreaded blackfly. Where we live above the Gull River, I have been encountering a few more, on each of the past three days, Sitting on the porch yesterday morning enjoying a morning beverage, I was buzzed by a few — looking for blood no doubt, but they were only as bothersome as our other swatables, during the warmer months. Not as bad as they will be. Then I saw the man.

He was walking up a dry spit of land in the middle of the river, down where the ducks congregate. Normally those areas are waist deep below water, but the river is low, the worst I have seen in the eight years we have lived here. Granted, a few years are not a long period in the weather story, although it has been long enough to experience two record breaking flood levels. This is the spring flow draught.
I saw the man through the window. When I first observed him, he was walking down by the water and had stopped at the edge of the swimming hole. Within a heartbeat the action started with a single swipe of an arm, followed by a sweep of the other arm, backed up with alternating arm swats.His dog swam into view and dripped its way out of the water. The man threw something into the river, the dogged jumped to retrieve. The man was making coordinated swats by then, both arms fluttering like windshield wipers in front of his face. He made a swift bend to swipe around his legs, exposed naked below his shorts.
The dog returned, the man threw the stick once more before he hurried back down the stream bed, arms flapping, followed moments later by his dog.

They’re back.