Cloudy and humid, with a steady stream of goldfinch and Carolina wren chatter. The sun appears through a hole in the clouds and multiple holes in the forest canopy to strike my face, summoning the demon of a sneeze.
Cold and clear, with dew dripping from the sun-struck roof. The dying lilac is re-greening with bindweed: ladders of heart-shaped leaves. In the woods, between sunbeams, a pewee’s bent note.
Breezy, cool, and very damp. A fledgling chipping sparrow at the woods’ edge chirps nearly non-stop, pausing only when the sun comes out for a few seconds.
A shower tapering off into birdsong. The tulip tree sapling in my yard dances in a light breeze, beads of rain sliding across its leaves but holding on. The sky darkens for another shower.
Cool and still, with a white sky and feeble sun. The jewelweed in the dripline of the porch has grown tall enough that I can see as well as hear the occasional hummingbird visitor, sipping nectar from bright orange goblets. At the other end of the yard, all the lilac leaves are turning brown.
Clear, cool, and breezy—a week to the day after our last dry high. Six crows sit on dead branches atop the two tallest locust trees in the yard. One minute past sunrise, they look all around, shift on their perches, and take flight.
An hour after sunrise the sky darkens again. At the first close rumble of thunder, a fawn leaps up out of the meadow and dashes into the woods.
Cool and humid at dawn. I open my laptop to draw the mosquitoes away from my head with a glowing screen. The cardinal begins to sing.
Sunny and cool. I happen to spot a moment of tenderness between hummingbirds: he buzzing back and forth a few inches from her perch in the eastern red cedar, she tilting her head back for a lightning-fast meeting of tongues.
Overcast and cool. The aspen sapling in my yard is wound around with bindweed, I notice, and I spend a few minutes removing it—unwinding, as it were. The leaves tremble as only an aspen can do.
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.
Clear and cold at sunrise. The dawn chorus is down to field sparrow, common yellowthroat and goldfinches. Distant crows. A truck jake-breaking through the gap. A red-eyed vireo starts up.
Overcast and cool. A rain shower comes rustling through the grass as a pileated woodpecker drums up on the ridge. I crush a mosquito, but not before she has bequeathed to me her itch.
Overcast and cool. Here and there, black walnut leaves are beginning to yellow. A deer foraging at the woods’ edge breaks into a trot to try to escape her flies.