Rising late, I find the sun already spread out on the leaves like piecemeal linen, shining white, and the forest floor striped with shadows.
2023
July 25, 2023
Sunrise thunderstorm: the sky darkening just when you least expect it, then the downpour and all the leaves of grass nodding like headbangers as the thunder booms.
July 24, 2023
Cool and clear, but still with some high-altitude murk. I miss the deep blue of my boyhood summers, the bright sun and dark shadows under the trees.
July 23, 2023
The second cool morning in a row, but quieter and not quite as clear. A deer looks up at me more with annoyance than alarm and goes back to grazing.
July 22, 2023
Cool and clear. A female hummingbird keeps hovering in front of my face and chirping, intermittently joined by two others. I am not wearing any bright colors. I’m left wondering what message I’ve failed to understand.
July 21, 2023
Fog at first light. The random percussion of rain dripping off the trees slowly joined by bird calls: pewee, towhee, song sparrow, wren…
July 20, 2023
Nuthatch scolding a gray squirrel, who scratches himself with a hind leg. The rising sun takes its place among the goldfinches.
July 19, 2023
A ten-minute shower unmentioned in the forecast. The sky brightens. A tiny white moth circles the yard.
July 18, 2023
Dawn fog loud with noise from the interstate, thanks to an inversion layer: it’s chilly for July. I don a flannel shirt and soon find myself daydreaming about autumn.
July 17, 2023
The best way to summon a hummingbird, it seems, is with another hummingbird: as soon as one appears, there’s another to fight with it. A deer sneezes behind the springhouse.
July 16, 2023
Heavily overcast and still, as if it’s going to rain at any moment. The usual birds saying the usual things. The deep-summer hegemony of green.
July 15, 2023
Fog lingering into mid-morning. Whatever the crows are up to, it involves a lot of begging sounds. The wild garlic heads are beginning to split.
July 14, 2023
The catbird mews and warbles, a hummingbird rockets back and forth, but it’s the mosquito’s still, small voice that gets my attention.
July 13, 2023
Haze before the heat. The tulip poplar sprout in its circle of deer fence is waving its newest Mickey Mouse hands.