Rain drips from the roof and from the trees. Clouds are thinning out. The topmost leaves of the tall tulip poplar are waving.
July 2024
7/30/2024
A white sky with a bright gash of sun. The red-eyed vireo falls silent, leaving only two crickets, one who chirps and one who trills. Then, inevitably, the wren.
7/29/2024
A cabbage white butterfly dances in a patch of sun—the method to a madness of perfectly random moves. An annual cicada’s slowly falling note.
7/28/2024
Another cool morning for a day forecast to be hot. A Carolina wren lands on the railing and cocks his head at me. A screech owl calls in the distance.
7/27/2024
Sun in the treetops. I try to re-find the half moon—nothing but goldfinches.
7/26/2024
Crystal-clear and cold. A mourning dove calls from the woods’ edge. A small patch of sun appears among the bracken, making a drought-struck frond twice as yellow.
7/25/2024
Cloudy and damp, with long intervals between bird calls. A small woodpecker’s improbably loud rattle from the black locusts sets off a pair of Carolina wrens.
7/24/2024
Overcast and still. A yellow walnut leaflet flutters down onto the fallen trunk of my favorite climbing tree when I was a kid.
7/23/2024
Tree crickets rather than birdsong: it feels like late summer already. But after yesterday’s soaking rain, leaves no longer droop. I can smell the earth.
7/22/2024
Cool and still with thin clouds. On the road-bank, a gray squirrel noses about in the leaves, as if searching its memory.
7/21/2024
Cool and partly cloudy. A fledgling wren at the woods’ edge begs to be fed—an interrogatory whine. The mob of feral garlic heads are splitting their hoods.
7/20/2024
Sun on leaves fading from shine to sheen. Sound is still out of the east: the slowly expanding crater swallowing farms and forests. It rumbles. It shakes.
7/19/2024
Clear and still, except for the distant beeping of quarry trucks. A common yellowthroat darts through the lilac bush, foraging for breakfast. A gray squirrel sounds the hawk alarm.
7/18/2024
Partly cloudy and cool. After yesterday evening’s brief rains, the happiness of the plants in my yard is nearly palpable. Formerly desiccated bergamot blossoms have swollen back into bloom.