Notes from Defiance
Defiance, Missouri is a small town located on the edge of the flood plain of the Missouri River west of St. Louis, in St. Charles County. The Lewis and Clark expedition passed this way, and Daniel Boone and his family settled in the nearby valley of the Femme Osage creek.
This is a beautiful region currently undergoing rapid change as people flee the results of the failed economic and social policies in the city by moving across the river to the countryside. The dense-pack housing development is being rolled out mainly to the north of us, on the former fields and pastures of the Dardenne Prairie along US Hwy 40 heading west towards Wentzville on I-70.
The land transitions from prairie into rough and broken Ozark hills and hollows as it gets closer to the river, to the south. It is incredibly wild down here, and all of the subdivisions are older, with a minimum lot size of 3.5 acres to accommodate septic systems, so everyone is spread out with lots of breathing room and privacy.
We live in the Wilderness subdivision, which is backed up to the Weldon Spring and the Busch Wildlife Conservation Areas, which total over 15,000 acres of prairie and mature hardwoods forest. There are trails behind the subdivision that connect with the network of biking and hiking trails in the conservation areas, as well as the Katy Trail, a rails-to-trails bikepath that runs along the Missouri River from St. Charles to the Kansas City. It's a big change from living on a 20x140 foot residential lot in the middle Pittsburgh!
June 29, 2024
Whew! The cicadas are GONE! Their dead bodies are everywhere, but it's quiet and peaceful once more.
Brood 13 Cicada
May 25, 2024
Brood 13, Missouri's 13-year Cicadas
There are about 1.5 million of these things per acre, and we live on about 3.5 acres... They prefer warm weather, becoming more active as the day heats up, swarming all over everything. Fortunately the cicadas don't sting or bite, but they're incredibly ugly bugs with scratchy legs and bulbous orange eyes, and they're enormous and getting bigger. According to the Missouri Department of Conservation, they will be with us through June.All the birds and squirrels are eating cicadas as fast as they can, but they are still everywhere, flying around and landing on everything, including people. Everyone is sick of the deafening sound of the male cicadas singing, and sick of the bugs themselves. There's nothing to do but wait it out. Then we can look forward to Horse Flies and the regular cicadas later in the summer. The butterflies seem especially agitated, and no wonder, with millions of cicadas zooming around in their airspace.
Preparations to go outside and work in our garden or yard normally include spraying Deep Woods Off on our shoes and legs and sprinkling Mexsana Medicated powder on our shoes and socks and lower legs to discourage ticks and chiggers. We spray Off on the backs of our hands and around our heads for mosquitoes or whatever else wants to take a bite out of us. We wear hats and sunscreen, and of course long pants and long-sleeve shirts and boots. This summer I've also started carrying my desert walking stick to poke among the weeds and flowers for snakes, and wearing my desert hiking mesh hat. Normally I wear this while we're hiking out in Utah for keeping away mosquitoes and no-see-um biting gnats, but I also find it useful at home here in Defiance for keeping the cicadas from landing on the back of my neck. Yuck! It's also good against Horse Flies, wasps, and hornets.