Stumps

afternoon sit.

the excavator came today and dug up most of the stumps of our trees. he also made piles of the remaining small branches along our yard. the land looks grotesque, mangled limbs with gauges in it and strips of bark peeled back, all heaped in messy mounds where before a forest stood. as he started to work down by the street, i pulled out some of the grandmother pine's branches to use for a debris hut later this summer. my husband and i also pulled out of the mess some saplings we'll attach to our porch, for the finches and chickadees to perch in when they come to our house for food.

the loss of the trees has offered the wind a playground, and the new, lusty presence of the wind here, combined with the windows being open today, helped me to hold, for a moment, an overhead image in my mind of the movements of air in our area. the cool little enclaves holding still down by the river, the warm areas of wind in motion over our yard, the hot little pockets within each of our rooms, with only the windows offering entrance and exit for the stuffy air.

more daffodils are out, and tonight there is a chirring frog chorus coming in through our open windows. only one or two peepers calling now.

last night, i saw somebody flittering about in the twilight and went outside, vainly hoping to hear the peeping of the woodcock's wings, but it was just a bat out for food.

we have had three swallows disputing control over our nesting box this year; i believe it's a pair versus one on its own - a male hoping to gain courtship offerings?