Sunrise. A deer grazes at the woods’ edge. A phoebe perches beside her and makes repeated sorties over her back, snapping up the deerflies.
2016
August 4, 2016
The wild garlic has all gone to seed, heads bowed with the weight of their descendants. A tiny ichneumon patrols the porch, wings a-quiver.
August 3, 2016
Overcast and cool. The irregular chirps of a cricket in the tall grass. A Canada goose flying over the ridge all alone honks twice.
August 2, 2016
Fog glowing sunrise-orange. Sound is out of the east: traffic, freight trains, the crusher at the quarry. A chickadee sings both his songs.
August 1, 2016
Sun in the treetops and a raven’s hollow, metallic croak. A fly buzzes through the porch without slowing down.
July 31, 2016
Yellow walnut leaflets come loose and flutter down in the slightest breeze, infiltrating for a few moments the confederacy of butterflies.
July 30, 2016
The rain begins just after mid-morning, slowly building in intensity. I watch as the dull green pelage of the world turns glossy again.
July 29, 2016
Bright sun after last night’s long-awaited rain. A chipmunk races down the road with cheek pouches bulging. A wood pewee’s melancholy call.
July 28, 2016
The drought forces plants into triage: the big tulip tree is turning yellow from the inside out; perennials are dying from the bottom up.
July 27, 2016
Two chipmunks in the woods locked in a rap battle fall in and out of sync. The chipmunk in the garden listens from atop the wall.
July 26, 2016
A hummingbird buzzes below the porch, looking for the touch-me-nots that the deer have eaten. Fly on my shoe, is it everything you’d hoped?
July 25, 2016
Through thinning clouds, the mid-morning sun’s dull glow. Below in the woods, leaves and branches beaded with moisture begin to glisten.
July 24, 2016
Cool and clear. A so-called white admiral butterfly lands on the other chair, with all the black and electric blue allure of a velvet Elvis.
July 23, 2016
As the heat builds, the cicadas’ electric drills fall silent one by one. Coneflowers wilt until they look like yellow jellyfish.