June 8, 2026

Thoughts

Just a few months from now at this exact time it will have been dark for an hour. Right this minute it’s what directors of photography call the golden hour. It’s when movie making looks the most beautiful, when there is a special glow with light so soft and warm. Blemishes disappear. Scenery looks celestial. There was a recent rain, so everything outside glitters. It went quiet for awhile as the dark clouds moved in, but now the birds are at it again. I know they are marking territory or attracting mates, but I don’t know what they are and one barely sees them. My brother-in-law visited us recently and brought with him an app that identifies birds by their songs. You simply hold your phone up in the air and it picks up a song somewhere. Sometimes you don’t even hear it ‘til the ap p plays it back to you. Amazing! I want one. At this point, we have another that takes a picture of a plant then tells you what it is. For what it’s worth, gypsy weed and garlic mustard have found their way among the rhododendrons. So many other plants and tiny flowers. So much stuff I’ll never know.

June 9, 2026

I try to learn something new each day, and yesterday was no different. What follows may not be of interest to you (though, of course, I hope it is), but it sure is to me because I’ve been disseminating some misinformation for years. No big deal, but now I know different. It’s about bumblebees and how they ought to be incapable of flight due to the bulk of their bodies and the flimsiness of their wings. I’ve been under the impression for years that the reason they fly so close to the ground was because the heavier air pressure helped to support them while at greater heights the air becomes too thin. Wrong. They are capable of reaching great heights if necessary due to the mechanics of their wings. Instead of beating up and down they are capable of changing direction, changing angles, sweeping instead of flapping, more like a helicopter. Why do we see them flying so close to the ground most of the time? The higher they go the more susceptible they are to the cold. Bulky as they are, their bodies just can’t take it, although one experiment had them at about 29,000 feet. But, as always, there’s a simpler explanation: low to the ground, that’s where the food is.

The morning of

June 13, 2026

So I’m sitting on the front porch taking in the early morning sun and thinking how wonderfully orchestrated this all is: an eagle in the deep blue sky,pure white clouds in a slow drift wind, chipmunks on the woodpile, bird calls from the forest, each tree primed for the months ahead, so many flowers in their turn - everything so coordinated, so calm, so right. And then, into the midst, comes this bear, a big old black one scampering from Ron’s bridge through Potter’s meadow then across the creek. It’s always exciting to spot a wild animal. They’re around, of course, you just don’t see them. But, when you do! Be it fox, deer, garter snake, even a robin or a blue jay - always exciting. That bear, however, that bear, spotting him is something special. An extra spurt of adrenalin cuts loose when ursus major lopes into view. As with all the others, you hardly ever see them but, good Godamighty when you do! In “Toehold”, my first novel, I described what it looks like when a bear is skinned out.“Looks just like a man.” Whoa.