A word to the wise…never leave the windows open after dark. Not when you live in on a farm. Especially a farm in the mountains. I learned this the hard way.

I can go up against an army of flies all day long, but bring in a few rust-colored wood roaches and I find myself standing on the coffee table, shrieking like a little girl, urging my husband to commit mass murder of the insect variety.

I still haven’t recovered.

I’ll probably have nightmares…visions of Will Smith battling the intergallactic cockroach in Men in Black. I think I might have to sleep with the lights on. I’m considering freeing my chickens to roam the house in search of bugs. But that might just cross some sort of line.

Remember how excited I was to be moving into the historic farmhouse? How thrilled I was to explore the history…to recapture the former grandeur? Yeah, not so thrilled anymore. I had no idea the recapturing I would be doing would involve bug nets. Can we get those flies back instead? Maybe the frogs? If I remember correctly, frogs eat bugs…that might not be such an awful plague, right?

I’m coating my skin in Off! That should do the trick. Yep, I’ll be sleeping alone tonight for sure. Hey, not to worry…I’m getting used to it.

Until the next time…I’ll be calling in an exterminator.

Ah, the mountains. So beautiful. So breathtakingly serene. So many freaking bugs.

As I was watching my newly activated satellite TV this evening, a spider walked across my sheets. I managed to kill him (without a drop of guilt over his death) but I may never sleep again. The trauma has scarred me like a paper cut…superficial but severe. I didn’t sign up for all these damn bugs when I agreed to move to the mountains.

Nor did I sign up for no hot water. No cell phone service. No blazing fast high speed internet. Yeah, yeah…I get it. I’m spoiled. But I’m ok with being spoiled. It works for me. Now I’m forced to get used to these roughing it conditions. And before I get a dozen lectures about how millions of people are forced to get by boiling water over an open flame for their once a week bath (my husband did just that last night) or forced to use a landline telephone (I grew up using those…the kind with the cord attached to the wall off all things) or even dial-up internet (too scary to imagine in this century) I’ve lived through these things already. This is how I know there are better ways to live. Yes, as a spoiled individual…and remember, I’m ok with that. I’ve been camping. It’s overrated. Give me the Four Seasons any day.

View from my bedroom windowBut there are definite advantages to living in the mountains. The views are pretty amazing. As it turns out, the Blue Ridge mountains are actually blue. And you can see all the stars at night. Who knew there were so many? And once I air out this musty old house, I think it’s going to be pretty amazing to live here…even if I do have to contend with nature on a daily basis. Nature can be nice if you let it.

Until the next time…I’ll be sleeping in my mosquito netting suit of armor!