{"id":67379,"date":"2020-06-27T15:42:47","date_gmt":"2020-06-27T19:42:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=67379"},"modified":"2020-06-27T15:44:28","modified_gmt":"2020-06-27T19:44:28","slug":"season-of-the-itchy-gritches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2020\/06\/season-of-the-itchy-gritches\/","title":{"rendered":"Season of the Itchy Gritches"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Blackberries, big as my thumb,<br \/>\nbut for every one, expect two chiggers.<br \/>\nYou won\u2019t see the chiggers,<br \/>\nbut you\u2019ll see the little red mounds<br \/>\nwhere they\u2019re sleeping<br \/>\nwhen you take off your socks.<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019ll wake you up in the middle of the night,<br \/>\npartying, I presume.<\/p>\n<p>I wonder if they\u2019re jealous<br \/>\nthat mosquitos get all the press.<br \/>\nProbably not.<br \/>\nIt\u2019s safer to stay undercover.<br \/>\nThere are no government spray programs<br \/>\nfor chiggers, are there?<\/p>\n<p>Are they related to the no-see-ums on the beach?<br \/>\nDo they know the biting flies<br \/>\nthat share the season with them?<\/p>\n<p>I should be grateful<br \/>\nthat all the biting monsters<br \/>\ncome in one season,<br \/>\nalbeit a long one, spring through fall.<\/p>\n<p>Through all the long months,<br \/>\nslather my legs with geranium oil,<br \/>\ncareful not to miss the spots behind my knees<br \/>\nthat itchy little seed ticks prefer.<br \/>\nWear crew socks, toe-enclosed shoes,<br \/>\nand look forward to the first hard freeze,<br \/>\njust making sure, before the happy day arrives,<br \/>\nthat all the green tomatoes are in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Blackberries, big as my thumb, but for every one, expect two chiggers. You won\u2019t see the chiggers, but you\u2019ll see the little red mounds where they\u2019re sleeping when you take off your socks. They\u2019ll wake you up in the middle of the night, partying, I&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":665,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,441],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","category-poetry-prompt-responses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/665"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67379"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67424,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67379\/revisions\/67424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}