Cool and humid—enough to muffle almost all valley noise. The sun goes back in. A carpenter bee sizes up the rafters.
carpenter bees
Mid-morning and it’s already hot. The black locusts—last to leaf out—have a fresh green fuzz. A carpenter bee inspects the roof.
Sunny and warm. Behind the screen of green leaves, a vulture’s lazy drift. A hummingbird collides with a carpenter bee over the yard.
Cold rain. A big carpenter bee flies in, circles the porch, and disappears under the house.
It’s hot. Everything with a stinger is out and about. Two carpenter bees body-slam like professional wrestlers and fall down to the floor.
The buzzing dog-fights of carpenter bees competing for access to the porch’s old wood. The first tiger swallowtail flutters into the yard.
A large leaf-footed bug stalks up and down a porch column, its shadow at its side. Two carpenter bees clash like airborne sumo wrestlers.
The sun disappears before it clears the treetops. A red admiral butterfly and a carpenter bee rest on the porch railing, inches apart.
Sky bluer than a bruise. A small salticid spider suns itself on my sweater. The first carpenter bee makes a slow inspection of the porch.
Two male woodpeckers rattle at each other from 100 yards apart. A carpenter bee inspects the porch, its drone a perfect generator of unease.
Thanks to insomnia, I have two mornings: one with ground fog lit by the waning moon at dawn, the other hot and abuzz with carpenter bees.