My front yard looks like a Walt Disney movie. There are
10 turtledoves, a squirrel, 3 blue jays, and a red winged blackbird. At least 5
chip monks, a sparrow, a purple house finch, a cow bird and enough bird seed on
the ground for them all to gorge themselves.
The chip monks run right through the turtledoves and make
them jump up in the air and put their wings up like hackles because they are
being disturbed. The blue jays think the red winged blackbird needs to share
whatever white bug he has in his mouth and chase him around the yard. The
squirrel does not move. His belly is so white it gleams and I try to remember
if squirrels really have white underbellies or just this one. There is one that
I see often in the winter with bright white tufts of hair behind his ears. He
reminds me of an old man with hair in his ears.
The bird song is amazing and the silence from the now dead
cicadas is welcome. The cacophony of just a week ago was deafening and getting
quite old. Not being able to speak to someone beside you because bugs are
singing out loud is pretty incredible to say the least and truly indescribable
for the decibel level. The noise they made would start at 3 am on hot nights
and 5 am on cooler nights. If it rained they were silent until their wings
dried. Thankfully the good lord saw fit to make that cycle be every 17 years.
I’m not sure I would want to live in the woods if it was every year.
June slipped by so quickly this year I almost missed the
lightening bugs. I would see them out the bathroom window at night when I got
up to use the toilet and would remember that it was June already. Too fast this
glorious weather slips by.
The house is being sold and whenever we have a showing Tom
and I go to the park to wait it out. This recent sunset was captured only
because I had the foresight to bring my iPad with me. Too bad I was not quick
enough to catch mama duck and her 10 incredibly tiny ducklings walking in a
line to the water’s edge and all hopping in one after another and trailing
slime behind them through the scummy water.
