Camouflage

Nature knew long before fashion mavens that camouflage is beautiful. Here's proof.
This bug knows where he belongs. It's hard to say which is more striking: the bug or the flower. I would have taken both home.

However, almost immediately after I took this photograph, a gentleman saw the bunch of flowers, purchased them, and pinched the bug off the bloom.

I couldn't help feeling the pinch.

Lights Out!

Murphy (of the famous law) raised his unwelcome head this evening and brought a power blackout (from Cowan to Monteagle) in the middle of my online lecture.

I decided to wait out the darkness (or most of it) on the deck, from which I watched the fireflies begin their nightly mating ritual. So beautiful were they that I grabbed the camera and took a movie. Watch it and then read Carl Zimmer on their seduction and deceit.

Sweet Home

Some days, I miss Alabama, for family and for food.

In summer, food means fresh peas and beans -- purple hulls, black-eyes, field peas, crowders, lady peas, cream peas, butter beans, limas, fordhooks. Collard, mustard and turnip greens and corn -- especially silver queen or honey and cream. And tomatoes (Tennessee homegrown tomatoes are tasty, but they're just not the same), okra, and blackberries. And . . . . peaches.

Oh, the joy of Chilton County peaches, like these.

My niece brought four as a gift on Saturday, and what a gift. We ate one while they were here. I shared another with friends yesterday.

Today, as a special treat, I are the remaining two slathered with cream for breakfast. Every bite, every bit, I savored -- the slip of flavor swimming with tart sweetness, the orange-red-maroon strings, the darkened nipple around the pit, the gooey goodness collected at the bottom of the bowl. I ate every morsel and licked every droplet.

Thank you, Jen, for your thoughtfulness and you, Chilton County, for supplying the best peaches I have ever eaten.

An Old Friend and a New One

On an unseasonably cool day, scrambled eggs with onion, cheese, and tomato served enchilada style with homemade salsa, good coffee and cream, a rainbow-striped umbrella, and an old friend and a new one -- these compromise the recipe for a lovely lunch. Eugenie, a former student of mine from 30+ years ago in New Orleans, and Bob (her new husband) traded their porch in the Monteagle Assembly for my deck for an hour or so this afternoon.

The rewards of slow living are many, today's visitors among them.

Family Weekend

A family weekend leafs in green and blooms joy.

Gris-Gris

Years ago, a New Orleans friend gave me this little beaded lady from Africa.

Instead of using her as a key chain, I keep her under my computer screen, from which she stares up at me even now while I write this slim post. Her bug-eyed white bead eyes and mouth, her iridescent beaded torso, her fat black bead feet -- all make me smile, no matter what I'm working on.

She's my little gris-gris, my joyful totem.

Thirst

Another drought.

After a drenching and stormy winter and spring, drought again visits us, leaving the ground sere, the animals desperate.

I have placed ready-made baths, three of them, around the back yard, including one on the deck. This afternoon, I watched as birds and squirrels waited their turns to slake their thirsts.

The squirrels are pests, but they have needs, too, and sometimes I feel compelled to meet them.

It's the least I can do.