June,
Thanks for that warm invitation! We have some mean snapping turtle here, too, and vicious deer flies. We also have huge horseflies that bite, but I've never heard of blackflies. I don't know if I could get used to the cold and the snow and ice though. I've been down here in the south all my life. We only get a tiny dusting of snow about once every decade, enough so it looks like powdered sugar on a cake or doughnut, and when that happens we close all of the schools, government offices, and businesses, roll up the streets, and close the city.
A tourist from the UK was here a couple yrs ago when we closed the city (yes, I'm really serious) due to a millimeter of ice; he was walking around all alone in the [totally deserted] tourist area downtown trying to figure out where everyone had gone, when a local news crew doing stories about the 'brutal' weather stopped to interview him. The expression on that guys face was priceless as he pondered how a tiny sliver of ice could result in the total absence of human activity anywhere in the city. Just to give you a true picture of that event, the low that night was in the 20'sF. Yes, that's plus 20'sF not negative. I guess you could say we are cold weather wimps.
But if it warms up a bit, hmm, your area is quite lovely and might be just perfect.
