An hour past sunrise, the first cicada call of the day stutters to a stop halfway through and resumes a half-hour later. Mosquitoes circle my feet propped up on the balustrade.
Sunrise reddens the western ridge as the flat-tire moon fades, alone in the sky. Jewelweed flowers along the stream nod and sway as the first hummingbird makes her rounds.
Crystal-clear and still at sunrise. Dew drips from the roof. Over by the springhouse, a red squirrel and a Carolina wren are having a free and frank exchange of views.
Clear and cold at dawn. The nearly full moon gutters among the trees. A screech owl trills with a rising intonation, which feels like some kind of omen.
Mid-morning and the sun is just struggling free of clouds and/or smoke. A chicken cackles in the distance. Annual cicadas exchange raspy notes.
Neither hot nor cold under a clouded-over sky that’s faintly blue, permitting sunshine but not shadows. The hummingbird circling my hung-out red bandanna appears to have developed a taste for my salt, tapping all over with her lightning-fast tongue.
Yesterday’s red bandanna, hung out to dry in the rafters, attracts first one, then two hummingbirds. Inevitably, they fight. The winner settles on the closest tree branch.
Thin, high clouds. The yellow smudge that is the sun rises to the tune of quarry trucks beeping backwards. I study the weeds where I saw a bear disappear ten hours earlier, just at dusk.
Clear, cold and still. I can’t stop gazing at the red oak seedling I found in the yard yesterday and immediately caged in a ring of deer fencing, its four jaunty leaves above a sea of invasive periwinkle.
Dawn. The thermometer has dropped to 50°F (10°C). Something small and dark disappears into the tall weeds beside the driveway, setting off first one, then the other Carolina wren. It never reemerges. The sun comes up.
Sunny and cold. The woods are quiet. A red-eyed vireo sings in the middle of the yard. A gray squirrel’s hawk alarm goes off.
Overcast and cool. At the edge of the cattail marsh, among the smartweed and tearthumb, I spot a lone stalk of purple loosestrife rocking gently in the breeze.
Overcast and cool, with sound out of the east: instead of the dull roar of interstate traffic, the dull roar of the quarry. I take stock of the dying: spicebush, lilac and currant bushes all blighted by nematodes, mildew or rust. The sun makes a bleary appearance.
Clear and still at sunrise, with a sheen of dew on the meadow. A screech owl trills in the distance, nearly drowned out by goldfinches.