Buzz

8:30 sit on deck tonight with husband

Air abuzz all around us: junebugs, Japanese beetles, mosquitoes, and a pine sawyer - a kind of insect I love - who landed in my hand as I was sitting.  About every 3 seconds, I caught a glimpse or earful of some winged being zooming near me. 

It is our grand apple tree's time of year to hum.  It happened last year, too: for a few days, upon arriving on our lands, the Japanese beetles court the apple tree so abundantly that to walk under it is like walking below a monstrous beehive.  The entire tree buzzes loudly.

A large dragonfly chased bugs as we sat.  It veered off course toward a junebug or Japanese beetle at one point, then turned back once it got a closer look at the insect - too big?

Birdsong abounded. 

Most gray tree frogs have left the waters, and are calling from the forest now, but not high in the trees yet.  One called from our rooftop tonight, near enough the chimney to sound like it was in our woodstove as I rocked my daughter beside it at bedtime tonight.  Another tree frog called in our little pond, which this week's rains returned to us. 

One new fellow croaked from down the road, a two-part, low rumble of a croak, not sure who.


The dark form of a large owl glided silently down the neighboring driveway, before rising up to settle in an aspen.

Day 20: Into the Earth

6:45 sit tonight

Lost a duck two nights ago, and last night my husband scared away the black fox who'd probably come back for more.  Tis the season of hungry pups.

On the way to my tree tonight, I pondered the groundhog hole near its trunk.  Down on the ground, peering as far in as I could, into the darkness, into the body of the earth.  Roots, lumpy earth, rocks line the sides of the hole.  I was suddenly struck by how holy, how immeasurably sacred and perfect it must be to be carried by an animal into the earth after death.  To be carried down, into the darkness, into the belly of the earth from which we all come.