Mosquito Flyer

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At approximately 5:38 am this morning, I was sleeping peacefully in my bed dreaming about riding a certain palomino through a grassy field. Then suddenly, a large overhead bird consumed us in its shadow roaring through the wind with an ear-piecing \”VA-ROOOOOOM…\” sound trailing behind it.

And since it\’s likely that no one really wants to hear about my dreams – luckily, that\’s precisely when I woke up, bolted from bed and ran for my camera. Thankfully I had the presence of mind to grab some flannel pajama pants on my way out the door.

As the lovely season of summer is upon us, our farm has seen its fair share of party-crashers: aka, mosquitoes, horse flies and black flies. Quite frankly, we are \”bugging out\” (you can thank my husband and his knack for puns, for that one!) The people, in addition to the horses, are tired of being eaten alive and with West Nile Virus being a very real threat this time of year, J.Drummond Farms took action.

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The farm brought in a plane to spray the treed areas, bushes and empty pastures. Of course, the horses in our pastures were a little spooked by the low flying plane but the pilot was very careful not to get too close to the animals in the fields. And if he had gotten close, he would have had to suffer the wrath of me… who, despite the fact that I was standing in my pajamas on my back deck, would have found some way to give him a talking to, or stern look, or something.

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No one messes with my mares and foals <grin> But seriously, no one messes with them – they are my pride and joy. Luckily, the horses in the fields each have large 20-acre pastures in which to run, so it was easy for them to get far, far, away from the plane and its spray.

Just as I was trying to snap another picture of the mares and foals running, I realized I was about to be granted the rare opportunity of photographing a plane head-on.

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