May 31, 2013. Flowers, Blooming Trees and Mosquitoes.

 

 

 

 

 

May 31, 2013.  Flowers, Blooming Trees and Mosquitoes.  We biked back to Cottage Row today and found a couple of additional picture-worthy scenes.   The first is a view of the Green Bay, from the edge of town.  The second is a view from the road to a patio of one of the several multi-million-dollar houses along Cottage Row.  Third, another abandoned building lot along Cottage Row.  You can almost imagine a home beyond the gate, probably built in the first half of the last century.  Now, the home is gone and there is second-growth timber and thick underbrush covering the lot.  It made me wonder what life was like there 80-100 years ago.  Who meticulously laid the stones?  What caused the last owner to leave and why wasn't the dwelling saved?  It is simultaneously majestic and sad. 

Peninsula State Park rests at the edge of the town of Fish Creek.  The nearest community to Fish Creek is Egg Harbor.  Actually, Fish Creek, Egg Harbor and most of the other communities in Door County are villages, hardly large enough to be called towns.  I clipped this explanation of the village name from the Egg Harbor Web page:

There are many conflicting stories about the name Egg Harbor. Some say it was named after a nest of eggs found on the shore by Door County's first settler. Others say it received its name because seagulls nested along the shore and one could gather a basket of eggs from their nests.

A more appealing story is told in the Door County Advocate of April 26, 1862. The story indicates that three or four Mackinac boats left Green Bay to deliver furs to the trading post on Mackinac Island. The boats stopped at the yet unnamed harbor to rest for the night. While rowing ashore there was a race to see who would reach the shore first. Food from the mess baskets was thrown at the leading boat and food quickly returned. First, hard tack was the missile of choice, but soon eggs flew through the air. When the boats reached the shore, the battle continued until the eggs were gone. Everyone enjoyed the fun and the story of the battle which was often repeated by the voyagers. The harbor was then identified as Egg Harbor.

 

Pick the explanation you like.  Regardless, the villiages of Door County are lovely places with businesses and residents planting flowers and blooming trees in every direction.  This a great time to visit because colors are everywhere.  I am not much of a flower person, but I confess I am taken with the multicolored landscape.

 

During our previous visits mosquitoes were not a problem.  This time, they are everywhere.  If the air is still, dozens of them will swarm over any warm body.  Annie tells me they don't bite, they saw into your skin and suck the blood.  It is only the female mosquitoes who bite (or saw).  The body senses the blood loss and rushes histamine to the site which causes the blood vessels to swell.  The swelling creates a bump on the skin.  The swelling irritates the nerves in that area and the irritation is felt by humans as itching.  Mosquitoes are pesky little critters which have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. 

 

So, Annie says Bounce, a fabric softener, will repel mosquitoes.  She has been walking around with a Bounce sheet sticking out of her shirt pocket all day.  I went to Snopes.com, a Web site which validates rumors and myths.  Snopes says this is one of many home remedies which are ineffective.  The best repellent:  Deet.  And, the site says it isn't harmful to use Deet with children, so long as directions are followed. 

 

That is good.  Annie looks like a second grader attending his first boy-girl dance whose mother stuffed a white handkerchief into his pocket.  Don't tell her I said that.