A bumper crop o' bugs.

Yessir, I reckon '17'll go down as a bumper crop o' bugs. 

As you know, I have strong feelings about insects and other bugs, and thus my feelings here are mixed. On the one hand, the gnats in spring were off the charts -- less so now. Skeeters have covered me with welts. I had a death match with an Evil Queen. On the other hand, our July evenings were lit up by fireflies in quantities that boggled me, like the first time you see the stars in the desert night sky. (Or so I'm told -- City Boy.)

And, during my lawn mowing hell job, I had a ride-along -- this kooky dragonfly kept flying by, landing on the lawn mower, keeping me company for a couple of rows, then taking off again. I felt like he was rooting me on, giving me moral support. 

"You can do it!"

On one of our many wet mornings, I found this bee hanging out on the porch rail like a roommate you find on the sofa watching TV, having closed the bar and slogged home about the time you were getting up to go to work.

"uuuhhh... hey, dude..."

But that's not fair to the bumblebee. As I say, it was wet, and bees can't fly when they're wet. I was reminded of a story my wife at told me about a coworker, an older woman who was babysitting a flock of grandchildren when they found a wet bee.

"Grandmaaaa! We have to save the beeeeee!" (I'm paraphrasing, but not by much.)

"Okay, well, we have to dry it off. Gently blow on it and help it get dry."

I just love to think of these three little kids blowing on the bumblebee. It did fly away, I'm told; either the impromptu blow-drying was successful or it got annoyed by being blasted with Pop-Tart breath.

I just let mine dry off naturally. Once it sobered up it was on its way.

So like it or not, we've had a bumper crop of bugs. Which makes me wonder: Why bumper crop? Webster's tells us that as an adjective, bumper means unusually large, but only uses it in the crop context. Why not a bumper load of laundry? A bumper pile of work? A bumper stack of pancakes? Use bumper in a different way today and report back on how people reacted.