Everywhere, from sunup to sunup, the world is full of song. The days are hot, hot, and all the day long I listen to the bees lifting from flower to flower, to the watchful chipmunk sounding its chock chock chock alarm while the red-tailed hawk wheels, crying, high in the sky. I can’t see the songbirds in the dappled light of a thousand leafy branches, but I can hear them calling from the trees.
~ Margaret Renkl
(The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year)
I can’t see the songbirds either but I hear them. Lovely thing those songs.
Their songs are uplifting, even if the birds are content to keep themselves hidden.
This book is on my TBR; thus far, I haven’t found a copy, but I’ll keep looking. It sounds very much like something I’d enjoy!
I do think you would like reading this book, Debbie, and I hope you will be able to find it somewhere. Perhaps you could request your local library to obtain a copy?
Good suggestion — thanks!
You’re welcome! 🙂
I like this combo. Today it is hot, hot! Too hot for even our song birds to chirp and I have not seen a squirrel. The only birds I have seen out my window are the hummingbirds at my porch feeder. It is unusually quiet this mid-day. However, Barbara, I have been hearing the mourning doves coo in the middle of the night.
Yesterday early morning we had a nice rain shower. The birds were happy catching worms. I actually saw a small bird hopping along to snatch a worm from another small bird’s beak! That bird was not in the mood to share.
And this is only the beginning of our hot, too hot summer, Barbara. Yesterday I started reading “A Slow Fire Burning” by my favorite author Paula Hawkins. Last month I read her most recent novel “The Blue Hour”. I read it in 3 days! I usually don’t read like that, but I absolutely couldn’t put it down!! I will pace myself with this month’s novel in all this heat. 💙
I’m glad you liked this combo, Teri. It seemed to look hot there to me and not a bird in sight. I haven’t heard mourning doves cooing down here but that used to me one of my favorite night sounds back home. I still wonder if it’s because hunting them is allowed in North Carolina but not in Connecticut. It is lots of fun watching birds feed each other. I did get to see the chickadees feeding their little ones on the tree branches this spring.
I think we’re in the middle of an excessive heat spell, too, and it’s supposed to be getting worse in the coming days. Enjoy your reading, it’s a good distraction from the hot weather and alarming world events. 💙
Right now I’m reading a new research guide to FamilySearch’s new Full-Text Search feature. It can search old unindexed documents, opening a new world of possibilities for me.
I read that that mourning doves prefer open or semi-open areas with scattered trees. Areas that are predominantly dense forests may have fewer mourning doves. They are very common in NC. So I don’t believe that fall hunting season is causing you not seeing them. But the dense forest where you live might be more probable. I’m happy that you are enjoying the chickadees!
Yes, I understand that you are in an excessive heat spell. Reading is a pleasure that can be enjoyed inside with air conditioners! Interesting what you have found to read!
The US unrest events and world war events in so many countries are awful. I feel sad for the human suffering and deaths and destruction of communities no matter what religion or country one is living. 💙
Stay safe, sleep well and good night, my friend. 😊
You’re probably right about that — we do have an abundance of trees surrounding us. Every once in a while a mourning dove or two will visit the birdbath and those moments are special because they’re not an every day occurrence.
Sounds like it’s going to be a long, very hot summer. It’s a funny feeling getting cabin fever in the summer instead of in the winter, but we’re getting used to this new reality. Besides, more and more often it’s just as hot back up in New England.
It does seem like the whole world is reeling from multiple shocks these days. It’s too much to take in. Yesterday we played cards for several hours and listened to classical music all day long — we really needed that break. It’s all so disheartening and discouraging.
But I’m grateful for friends like you! We are not alone and we are all in this together. 🙏
Sounds like my life right now. 🙂
I just heard about the Extreme Heat Warning issued for your area. Please stay safe, Eliza!
Thank you, Barbara. Over 100º in New England? What?? You can be assured, I won’t be out working my garden the next four days. 🔥 🥵
I should say not! It’s going to be just as hot down here so we’ll be inside, watching the poor squirrels splooting on the branches…
We crazily went out around 9 this morning to transplant some newbies we picked up at an end-of-season sale yesterday, thinking it ‘wouldn’t be so bad.’ Wrong! HA!
Lesson learned!!! (I hope!) We had to go out for a medical appointment mid-afternoon. Hit with an oppressive wall of heat and humidity just from opening the front door.
The humidity has lessened today, but the sun is blistering hot. Good day for drying laundry, it’ll get ironed in the heat, too, ha! 😀
Don’t burn your hands taking the heated laundry off the line! 😀 To help the power company I’ve been running the dishwasher and doing the laundry in the middle of the night.
Ha, they did feel like they’d just come out of dryer!
I don’t look forward to our big heatwave the next three days – we got to 90 today and it is 83 at 11:00 p.m. I still have this book on my To Be Read pile, but, I decided last week to give up French and get back to reading. I’ll never travel again and the memorizing words and phrases was okay and somewhat easy, but the grammar was downright difficult.
I heard about the heat dome on the news, I hope you’re staying safe, Linda. It’s alarming when it stays so warm at night and nothing can cool off. Since you don’t plan to do any more traveling it makes sense to drop the French lessons and exercise your brain in a different way. As Jhumpa Lahiri said in The Namesake, “That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.”
Thank you Barbara – yes, I am staying safe. I scurried out this morning around 7:45 to run the car in the garage, then went to the backyard to see if the A/C unit had Poplar tree fuzz – thankfully, it appears that is done for the season. This is the first time I did not have the tech in for the A/C checkup in May or June latest. Since I got all new HVAC equipment, furnace and A/C and surge suppressor in 2012 with this company, they always called me to make an appointment for a furnace tune-up or A/C tune-up because I’m a Gold Plan member (you pay $200.00/year for those two tune-ups and also if you have issues, you’re put to the top of the list). So, they don’t call anymore and I know it’s on me to be “smarter about things” but I called the beginning of June and said “you didn’t call and it was so cold I never thought about making an appointment to be honest” She curtly said “well we don’t call or send an e-mail anymore – we have too many customers.” I could have been snippy and said “well maybe I’ll go elsewhere so you don’t have so many, but I also have them do yearly maintenance on the generator, so I held my tongue. So the first appointment I could get was July 7th. I hope I don’t run out of coolant by then, but I just turned it on for the first time a few weeks ago, so I should be fine. I run it at 77 during extreme heat as it gets too cold in the house otherwise. But it will teach me to be more proactive … there’s too much going on in the world these days that I’m thinking of.
I sure like that quote – it is so true. I have no desire to travel, those days are over and I did start and finish a book which I thoroughly enjoyed (“Where the Crawdids Sing”) … it’s been around for a while and a movie made of it as well, but the nature part was interesting to me and I enjoyed it thoroughly. As I get closer to 70, I think to myself, enjoy your remaining years doing something enjoyable, not saddling yourself with “schoolwork” as you already had that era in your life, so don’t repeat it. In this heat wave, I’ve been doing watercolors of butterflies.
I didn’t know so much was involved in maintaining an HVAC system. It’s nice for us our landlord takes care of all that so we’ve never had a problem. I guess we’re lucky!
I agree, spend your remaining years doing something enjoyable. It takes time to adjust to retirement, to stop rushing around and feeling pressured. But you should get the hang of it sooner or later. You worked hard all your life, now you can slow down the pace, relax, and choose activities that feed your soul and bring you joy.
The Poplar trees are bad this year. I know they have years where they are worse than others. I took some pictures of the piles of cotton at Lake Erie Metropark for a future post. It’s amazing. I was glad the A/C grille was okay this morning and didn’t need spraying down. I ran out to take the garbage and run the car and came in and felt like I had been walking many miles. I am over-enjoying myself right now since it is so hot and I indulged in more painting today. I want to finish this painting part of course while it hot outside and then I have some sketching to do as well. I put that off to the end when hopefully I am able to go walk again – not attempting that in this heat.
Looking forward to seeing that post. We have a couple of tulip poplars in our back yard but I think they produce a yellow-green pollen. I don’t blame you for curtailing your walking in this excessive heat. Too dangerous, even for young healthy people. It’s great that you have your painting to enjoy and help pass the time forced inside.
It is always unique to see that fuzz Barbara – just everywhere you look and it seems to “catch” along the path at the grass making it look like a snow outline. I do miss walking but I don’t see going back for another week, then next Tuesday is allergy shots, so I usually make that an errand day/grocery shopping day – that is every three weeks. We have stormy days off and on and continued high heat until Tuesday. I’m glad to have made it through another stormy day today. Some of the Planet Fitness gyms give free passes in the extreme heat or even when we had the wildfire smoke and they give a free Summer pass to all high school kids to go there all Summer through Labor Day. I think that is nice because we’ve had several young athletes collapse on the field at high school football practice in August when it is usually so hot.
Interesting – that’s the first time I’ve heard of a gym offering itself as a cooling center. Here they use libraries and community centers, but I guess young athletes could make better use of a gym.
I thought it was a good idea too and I think it has an ulterior motive to keep the kids out of trouble and occupied away from the screentime as well. They have a community center and the police station (which surprises me) as our cooling centers. The library, city hall and the police station are all very old and there has been talk of ripping them all down for years.
We finally got a beautiful Saturday to enjoy around here yesterday. Currently raining and cool this Sunday morning, but hot, hot temperatures are due to roll in this afternoon and hang out for a few days. Hope you’re staying comfortable in NC.
Yay! I hope you took good advantage of your good weather Saturday! I don’t envy you having to endure the coming heat wave — looks like New England should reach 100°F on Tuesday, while North Carolina is expected to get to 101°F. So grateful for air conditioning.
I did take advantage of the weather – I went to a place you probably remember from life in CT, Hammonasset State Park. I took my new e-bike after an adjustment was made to it from the shop I bought it from – in Berlin, CT – and rode the bike paths around the beach.
Actually I’ve never been to Hammonasset Beach State Park. With the heavy traffic on I-95 we rarely went that far. Rocky Neck State Park and Harkness Memorial State Park were much closer to home. A friend of mine got an e-bike and she loves it. Riding one on bike paths near the beach sounds like lots of fun.