" Fields around are yellowing into harvest
nestlings and fingerlings are sky and water borne"
from Wilderness Gothic
by Al Purdy
Some recent highlights.
The swallow chicks from the nests by the living room eaves
left the nest a couple weeks ago and were feed in the trees by
the porch. You could really see the dominance of the larger
chicks.
Also shot for the living room window, a White-Throated Sparrow
feeds a Brown Headed Cowbird chick. The White-Throated
Sparrow is considered a rare cowbird host according to The
Birders Handbook by Enrlich et al.
A young coyote approaches us on our walk. The parents
apparently stash them somewhere while they go to hunt. Like
teenagers everywhere they then unlock the door and go to the
mall. A couple of rocks in its direction convinced it that people
and their dogs are not something to approach.
This summer we went on four studio trails, where you drive thru
the country and artists welcome you into their homes and studios
to share their work. It give you wonderful insight in how creative
people can be. We bought painting, pottery and quilts as well,
but we really likes these wooden items by three different artists.
I have long wanted to carve birds so I love the Wren I bought, now
I have to get busy.
Finally the local lake in the evening, my wife and her
family fished here on Sundays so it is a special place
for her.
"This is, I think,
what holiness is:
the natural world,
where every moment is full
of the passion to keep moving.
Inside every mind
there's a hermit's cave
full of light,
full of snow,
full of concentration.
I've knelt there,
and so have you,
hanging on
to what you love,
to what is lovely.
The lake's
shining sheets
don't make a ripple now,
and the stars
are going off to their blue sleep,
but the words are in place --
and the fish leaps, and leaps again
from the black plush of the poem,
that breathless space."
from At The Lake
by Mary Oliver
