Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow
Breezy and warmish with a few thin, high clouds. A fly walks slowly across the open document on my laptop. From up in the woods, the plaintive call of a spring peeper already attuning himself for next spring, as his body prepares for months of dormancy under the leaf duff.
Overcast and cool. Pieces of black walnut husk rain down from a squirrel’s breakfast. I remember the walnut husk maggot fly that landed on my armrest yesterday, its elegant striped wings and strange green eyes.
Another clear, autumnal morning, with the temperature around 12C. The grinder at the quarry is having its breakfast of limestone. I marvel at the flies coming to life as the sun strikes.
Mid-morning, and a small fly warms itself on the black keys of my laptop. The crow family makes its usual racket off in the sun-stuck woods. Vireos and a wood pewee reiterate their territorial claims.
I feel like a salamander, slick with moisture from hiking in 98% humidity. The first flies are beginning to buzz about, anticipating the sun burning through the fog.
Breezy and cool, with the sun guttering in cirrus. Over the course of an hour, I swat an astonishing diversity of small flies and gnats. It’s good to feel wanted, I suppose.
Some prolonged glimpses of the sun. Gnats circle my head despite the gnatcatcher calling non-stop from the edge of the yard.
Cool beginning to another scorcher. A fly goes for a walk down a porch column. The thud of a walnut on the road.
Almost fall. The motherless fawn running out of the woods has lost its spots but not its cloud of flies.
Feet propped up, my trouser legs become new territory for flies. A vulture glides over the forest, its shadow racing up and down the trees.
Bright and warm. A squirrel in the lilac drops to the ground for a quick roll, as if scratching an itch. A fat fly moves into the shade.
Cloudless and cool. I wonder idly about the target shooter a couple of miles away, their preferred pronouns. A fly walks the rim of my mug.
A pause in the rain. Under a dripping cedar limb, two filmy-winged winter insects dance side by side, pogoing like airborne punks.
Sun warms the porch; a rising buzz of flies. Each spicebush around the farm is yellowing up on its own schedule, bud to fuzz to frowze.