Twain said that the difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. Anyone who's ever strung together words with serious intent knows the truth of that maxim.

So here I am, living about 20 miles from Mr. Twain's most famous residence... and the maxim came to life for me last night. We were warned about a string of very powerful thunderstorms wandering by, so when I started seeing flashes off in the trees alien invasion or a Michael Bay film set didn't occur to me. I stood there watching these incredibly bright flashes, just over the horizon (=trees and more trees) and multicolored depending on level and distance. No sound, no clouds overhead, no rain - just giant fireworks down below the treetop level and off thataway.

Then I realized I was seeing something else - sparkles all around that I'd assumed were lightning. They weren't. It's firefly season here again. Since our first month here last year was in the tail end of that time (yes, that's a joke) and it was my first time seeing fireflies in quantity and in their natural element, I still think they're pretty cool. But watching the lightning show battle with the lightning bugs was exceptional and I have no trouble understanding why Twain liked the phrase so much. (He claimed he got it from Josh Billings, but he used it a number of times in different contexts over the years.)

You are fortunate to get to see a firefly show.
There were a lot more of them when I was a child. So
much so that it was an assumption that you would
start seeing them about an hour after dark and
there would be hundreds if you lived in a rural area.

I live not so far away from you...in NY on the border
with CT and now some years I go the entire season
seeing none at all - and other years seeing only a handful.

Are they still common by you? Or was this a one-off?

I didn't live or camp in areas where fireflys were common when I was a kid, but I still remember the night I camped rough outside of Salzburg, Austria and watched for a couple of hours as hundreds of little points of light danced around the camp. It's quite a sight, and a WHOLE lot safer than watching lightning striking nearby every few minutes and your tent lit up with static electricity. (Which I've seen rather more often than fireflys.)

The ticks of the region are particularly nefarious. With more than half of all ticks infected with something - not necessarily Lyme disease. Anaplasmosis, babeioisis, erhlichiosis and other diseases are available to us via the tick vector. I contracted erhlichiosis at one point and developed a headache that was painful enough that I cried. The associated pain went from head to tailbone along the spine. I was dizzy, experienced temporary loss of vision - a few seconds at a time, and other symptoms.

This has had a serious impact on my enjoyment of the woods and fields. I still go but nowhere near as often, I over-spray myself in DEET, and am less likely to go off trail. E was a terrible experience for me that I never want to repeat. At that time it had apprx a 6% fatality rate. I dealt with a doctor that was resistant to the idea that I had contracted a tick-borne disease so late in the season (it was Autumn) and so I was diagnosed late.

Risk Map Connecticut


Risk Map USA


NY Times article - April 4, 2012 / Why this year will be an abundant tick season.


MSNBC - Spread of tick-borne diseases other than Lyme under the radar.

And deer have more rights than people.

Deer density and regulations are roughly identical here (Vancouver Island). Lyme disease extremely rare though (maybe a couple of cases a year). The fawns were late this year, it seems.

Lyme disease is named after the collection of towns named Lyme in CT, of course. It's a fairly serious worry here, especially for dogs.

Ay-yuh. And you should see what Butchart does for Christmas. Wonderful lighting displays with a Twelve Days theme all around.