Babes in the woods

For the past few days, we’ve been seeing a small flock of wild turkey hens traveling with their assorted poults through our yard and across the street in the neighbor’s field. Yesterday morning a whitetail doe stood on the hill behind the house for quite a while. She was briefly joined by a spotted fawn who did a series of zoomie circles around the yard and disappeared back into the woods. Some time in the past few days, a young downey woodpecker knocked itself out on the walkout door to the deck. An hour or two after seeing the “body” lying on the deck, it was gone. Flown away with a headache? It’s that time of year when young’uns learn their way around a home range and some, while exploring, make more mistakes than others. Watching fawns and poults dash and scurry around is one oof the joys of country living.

back yard: whitetail doe

Photo by J. Harrington

Then, today, after having lived in the country here for something like twenty-five years, for the first time we saw a pair of sandhill cranes in our very own back yard. Before now, we’ve seen them in the neighbor’s fields, on mown lawns at a subdivision down the road, in distant farm fields, and, often, in the nearby Carlos Avery marshes. We can now largely confirm the old British saying “All things come to Thames that wait!” Unfortunately, patience has never been one of my stronger points, but I no longer feel discriminated against by the crane population.

back yard: sandhill crane

Photo by J. Harrington

This afternoon we’re getting thunder with no rain. Yesterday we had a brief downpour with no thunder and almost no clouds. Sun-shower, anyone? More thunder is in the forecast for the evening. We can use the precipitation, preferably without any severe side effects. As of today, we’re down to just over 15 hours of daylight and dropping. It’s less than two weeks to Lammas, or Lughnasadh, the beginning of harvest season. In anticipation, I’m again back to refreshing (resurrecting?) my sourdough starter. That’s it for now.

In Harvest

By Sophie Jewett

Mown meadows skirt the standing wheat;

I linger, for the hay is sweet,

New-cut and curing in the sun.

Like furrows, straight, the windrows run,

Fallen, gallant ranks that tossed and bent

When, yesterday, the west wind went

A-rioting through grass and grain.

To-day no least breath stirs the plain;

Only the hot air, quivering, yields

Illusive motion to the fields

Where not the slenderest tassel swings.

Across the wheat flash sky-blue wings;

A goldfinch dangles from a tall,

Full-flowered yellow mullein; all

The world seems turning blue and gold.

Unstartled, since, even from of old,

Beauty has brought keen sense of her,

I feel the withering grasses stir;

Along the edges of the wheat,

I hear the rustle of her feet:

And yet I know the whole sea lies,

And half the earth, between our eyes.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.