I haven’t even had the computer on for days. It has been nice after needing to use it everyday for the last semester; I feel liberated.

The heat of a few days ago reminded most of us of August and seemed quite abnormal. One of those hot evenings, I decided I better water the garden, the peas are stunted and the seedlings were looking droopy. As I readjusted the sprinkler, a humming bird quickly took up pursuit of some fresh water. He stayed within the arch of the spray and appeared to be drinking the drops. Tonight, I again watered some seedlings, and the little hummer came by for another drink. I don’t put out a bird bath since I live next to the river, but I guess for the hummingbird fresh drops of cool water were a treat. I wonder if he goes out in the rain to catch drops?

With the garden needing planting and tending, my focus has been on the small circle of my yard. I tend to notice the bird songs, but my head is bent over the ground and my field of view has shrunk. I keep finding worms. Three years ago I had none here, so I am doing something right. I have added compost, wood chips and many bales of hay or straw, along with leaves each fall. The slug population has diminished. I think the chickens helped that while they foraged for two years; I wonder what will happen without them now.

There is a pair of chickadees nesting in a rotten birch stump (which is about four feet high) by the garden. They nested there last year too. Luckily for them it is near the asparagus patch and I have don’t go in that area very often. It is fun to watch then flit in and out. Right now they are in most of the time. The cardinal at the day care where I work abandoned her nest with one beautiful spotted egg. It is mottled grays and browns, and blends in almost perfectly with the grasses and leaves that the female built the nest with. We think they have made a new nest outside of the play yard, where the children don’t make so much noise.