Crystal-clear and cool. A Cooper’s hawk calls from a sunlit limb at the woods’ edge—a sound I haven’t heard since early spring.
Plummer’s Hollow
7/10/2024
Here and there, the bracken in my yard is beginning to turn yellow. A hummingbird buzzes past, pausing to inspect several garlic heads.
7/9/2024
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.
7/8/2024
Every morning, more soapwort blossoms, and the raspberry canes are stretching into new territory. A harvestman stalks across my gray wasteland of a porch.
7/7/2024
Clear and blessedly cool as sunlight floods the treetops. A distant siren. The incessant chatter of goldfinches.
7/6/2024
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.
7/5/2024
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.
7/4/2024
Overcast and very humid. The big dial thermometer behind me on the wall is buzzing loudly. A minute later, a mud dauber wasp emerges.
7/3/2024
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.
7/2/2024
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.
7/1/2024
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.
6/30/2024
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.
6/29/2024
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.
6/28/2024
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.