A meteor streaks the dawn sky—a fast, yellow brushstroke. From over the ridge, the quarry’s dull grind. The first, faint twittering from the meadow.
2024
August 12, 2024
Clear and cold, with sun in the treetops. A pileated woodpecker in the yard lets loose with a cackle, prompting an immediate reply from off in the distance.
August 11, 2024
Cold and still at sunrise. A hummingbird zooms past, pausing over a snakeroot that is almost in bloom.
August 10, 2024
An autumnal sunrise, with crisp air and the creek full of voices, bracken browning in the yard, and the walnut leaves experimenting with carotenoids.
August 9, 2024
Steady rain with a bit of a breeze—the remains of a hurricane that got the wind knocked out of her and lost her eye. At 7:39 the Carolina wren finally pipes up.
August 8, 2024
Drizzle. A family of wrens make the sprawling old lilac sing and shimmy.
August 7, 2024
Rain at dawn, tapering off by sunrise. Everything looks drenched. From behind the house, an indigo bunting’s cascade of notes.
August 6, 2024
Nearly silent at sunrise, except for the field crickets playing their only hit: so much autumn and melancholy in that raspy metronome.
August 5, 2024
Clear at sunrise, and cool enough that the crickets are still. I notice the big tulip tree at the woods’ edge has shed all its drought-stressed leaves and is green again.
August 4, 2024
Partly cloudy and cool at sunrise, with 97% humidity and very little noise from—I’m guessing—valleys full of fog. A single-engine plane fades into the distance.
August 3, 2024
Cool and very humid. A thin cloud forms in the treetops, shot through with sun. A screech owl trills.
August 2, 2024
Darkness falls at 7:50 a.m. as a thunderstorm rumbles in. The yellow walnut leaves fluttering lazily down seem oddly unaffected by sudden sheets of rain.
August 1, 2024
Half an hour past sunrise, a hummingbird and a hoverfly both find my head to be an object of interest. A red-bellied woodpecker cackles from a tall locust.
July 31, 2024
Rain drips from the roof and from the trees. Clouds are thinning out. The topmost leaves of the tall tulip poplar are waving.