Here and there, the bracken in my yard is beginning to turn yellow. A hummingbird buzzes past, pausing to inspect several garlic heads.
Plummer’s Hollow
July 9, 2024
Cool and clear. A pair of bindweed blossoms have opened on a fence post like microwave transmitters. A tiny patch of fog shelters from the sun in the lowest part of the meadow.
July 8, 2024
Every morning, more soapwort blossoms, and the raspberry canes are stretching into new territory. A harvestman stalks across my gray wasteland of a porch.
July 7, 2024
Clear and blessedly cool as sunlight floods the treetops. A distant siren. The incessant chatter of goldfinches.
July 6, 2024
Breezy and a bit less humid. A low buzz below the porch, where orange jewelweed attracts a ruby-throated hummingbird. A low rumble from my own stomach.
July 5, 2024
Humid and still, with clouds trailing low into the treetops—a typical morning in the tropics. The scolding and begging sounds of birds with fledglings.
July 4, 2024
Overcast and very humid. The big dial thermometer behind me on the wall is buzzing loudly. A minute later, a mud dauber wasp emerges.
July 3, 2024
A deer moves through the sunrise meadow, head and ears visible above the weeds. The furious chittering of a small flock of goldfinches swirling past.
July 2, 2024
The garlic heads in my yard give pause: a crowd of inverted commas, punctuating wildly. A goldfinch drops by to strip the seeds from an old weed stalk.
July 1, 2024
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.
June 30, 2024
The edge of a small storm an hour past sunrise brings another shower and a restless breeze. From the treetops, the sound of nestlings begging to be fed.
June 29, 2024
Heavily overcast; 88% humidity. I’m clapping out the lives of mosquitoes, one after another—too big and slow for their own good. A breeze springs up.
June 28, 2024
Clear and cold. The beeps of quarry trucks mingle with the shrill calls of red-bellied woodpeckers. Two hummingbirds in a high-speed chase fly out of the woods and up over the house.
June 27, 2024
Clear and cool. Two Carolina wrens are burbling at the woods’ edge, while a cardinal is assaulting all the windows.