Warm and humid with an occasional breeze. Mosquitoes are out in force, both large and small species, flying with disconcerting speed. I clap and clap.
July 1,
Overcast, humid and cool. A bang from the back roof—an aborted walnut. The sun comes out for a few seconds. One of the last 17-year cicadas falls silent again.
Cold and partly cloudy. A hummingbird buzzes in to sip from the jewelweed below the porch, then up to forage for small invertebrates on the leaves of a walnut tree.
I watch a new squirrel figure out the tree-to-tree route out of the woods, backtracking, sizing things up. The sun goes in.
A brown thrasher sings behind the house, repeating each line as usual like a didactic jazz soloist. The sun struggles blearily to come out.
The sun makes a brief appearance; a breeze picks up. The bluebottle fly moves to the lee side of the railing and rubs its forefeet together.
A thin bead curtain hangs from the walnut tree: tiny tussock moth caterpillars, curled tight as question marks, rappelling down to the road.
A convocation of robins in the tulip tree at the edge of the woods, like pot-bellied businessmen with their self-important tut-tut-tuts.
My mind drifts. At what precise angle of sun, I wonder, does the light lose its magic? I glance over and meet a deer’s unreadable eyes.
The dawn chorus begins just as it does in January: with cardinal song. High above the atmosphere, a satellite catches the first rays of sun.