Aramis, in buddha pose.
How could I not smile?

foxy marauders

Our niece and family live across the street from an iris farm in Boulder, CO, where we recently visited. We wandered through the fields, with the glorious Flatirons in the background, to catch the last blooms. I noticed: a child's pink Croc in a furrow; a fencepost with a runningshoe; another; a clothesline with a row of gloves dangling from it; more fenceposts with assorted shoes and gloves. What gives?
Amanda explained a family of foxes had denned under one of the outbuildings, and each night roamed through north Boulder gathering these human artifacts from yards and porches; as folks walked through the gardens, they put them wherever they could off the ground--fence posts, shelves, tree branches.
I retraced my steps a few mornings later and found a pile of fresh bounty--shoes of every color and size--in front of the den's entrance; as I watched, a fox trotted out, but turned tail when he saw me. I retreated and watched from a distance as he came out, grabbed a Nike, and carried it back to the den.
Are they running a thrift store? playing dressup? insulating the den for winter?

romance

After the old bird box, made by my uncle, fell apart, I did nothing for a few years. I had labeled it the House of Death after a black snake raided the wrens, dropping the dead chicks to the ground as it dangled like a necklace from the box.

This year, I realized how much I missed the nesting birds and so mounted a new box. The first brooders ignored it; I figured it might need a year to season before they deemed it worthy. Soon, however, these chickadees began their inspecting, building, brooding, and hatching. Here, one passes food to the other to feed the chicks. I am so joyfully entranced to watch them in their purposeful business.
A few mornings after this interchange, I was out early, chasing a rabbit who was wistfully gazing through my barricades at the lettuce. On my way, I noticed something strange on the chickadee box, thought it possibly a wasp nest, and circled back to check it out after the rabbit was successfully shooed. Approaching from the other side, I could identify the coiled checkered snake easily, lumped on top of the box.
While I am one with the wonders of nature, understand the natural balance of things, yadayada, no one messes with my chickadees. A 12' pole and a husband with a hammer later, that danger was dispensed with.
Three days later, soft down is protruding from the box. Another marauder? The flight of the chicks and the next tenants moving in? Were my gestures futile? Ephemeral? Wistful?

Day fades to twilight.
Nighthawk veers across the sky,
first one of the year.

tall grass prairie

big sky
white straw grass, just beginning to green
solitary twiggy twisted trees
copses tucked into the indentation of the hills
wind
birds of the grasses--meadowlarks, kildeer, blackbirds, and then a totally unexpected wonder, foot-long tail, vivid salmon shoulder pads, a scissor-tailed flycatcher.

leaving home

Blasting out of the ordinary is easier when I travel. Unless it's to a very familiar place, I'm surrounded by the new--not always positive or enchanting, but able to raise my level of being aware, outside of my self.
We're traveling though parts of the South we've missed before, filling up on new sounds, sights, and oh my goodness tastes. Routines are abandoned, miles on the road dissolve, as we wend our way from the Tall Grass Prairie of Oklahoma through the Ozarks--both far more beautiful than anticipated.
Today: Little Rock, and then on to Memphis.

sleepless night

A sleepless night. Sitting at the computer, with a cup of tea, while it's still pitch black out as far as I can tell, I hear the softest song:
http://www.learnbirdsongs.com/birdsong.php?id=12
It's a sound that speaks Spring to me. This chickadee and his mate have moved into the nesting box I've hung just outside the window, and his melody, murmured to his mate, notes the onset of the day.