Wonderful spring rains today. Storm after storm swept over us, drenching every tree and rock and blade of grass. The sun would shine for a few minutes and tease you into believing it was over, then it clouded up again and BOOM! Boom, boom, boom... another gullywasher.
The dogs and I took a quick hike between two storms. I had my binoculars with me in hopes of seeing the Indigo Buntings that sing so sweetly in the trees along the pipeline. They were there again. I heard them, I snuck up on them from the hill above for a better view into the treetops. I changed positions, coming at the trees from other angles. Sigh... still no luck. Oh well. I'll try again tomorrow. I do so love to watch a bird sing...
It started drizzling again before we even got to Meetinghouse Creek, so we turned around. On the way back I found a crow feather, solid black against sandy clay. A little further on I found a dead beetle on the path, with ants snacking on the edible parts, the two hard, shiny wings cast aside. The turkey feather came next. It was delicately balanced on spikes of spring grass.
Back at the house I sat on the back stoop and noticed the last gullywasher had rearranged the driveway gravel, delivering some chunks down onto the brick walk. We are lucky to find occasional pieces of Biotite Mica in with the granite. The one I found on the walk is mostly quartz with just a thin layered section of the mica.
Daisy was trying to eat the dead wasp. Yuck. I moved the wasp from her sight, putting it behind me with my other stuff, and realized that it all had something in common - the color black.
2 comments:
The sketches you include in each post are fabulous. It's always impressive to see artistic naturalists at work!
Thank you, Mike!
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