Lazy Friday Afternoon

Two exams down, five more to go...*sigh*

It is a beautiful day outside. As I sit here typing and not studying, I can hear a redstart and a house sparrow. All the windows are open, all the doors are open, all the lights are off, and the fans are spinning. Even though it is only May 22, it feels awfully like a cool July afternoon! As I walked out to check on my garden, I saw that some wassically wabbit munched the radish greens off my radishes. There are nibblings on my lettuce leaves as well. Ahhem...This is my garden, and I would like to know just who would scale a WABBIT proof fence and trespass into private property?*cough, cough * John Chippy Chipmunk *Cough*

I am happy to report that the corn family is doing quite well, as well as the pumkin family. No trespassers are making baby green salads out those, thankfully. I am sad to report that a different sort of trespasser knocked Mr. and Mrs. Robin's nest down from under the deck posts. We all know what bandit would have done that! The eggs were pipping when I last checked the nest last week...it's so sad, isn't it? I've tried to deter Mother and Father Robin from building their nest there for several season, because racoons have no trouble getting at the eggs, as you may imagine. (If a racoon can brave pepper spray, outwit little brother knots on about 16 bungie cords on trashcans (Not plastic ones!), and still win what ever little bit of soggy food and eggshells are inside, then scaling a wall shouldn't be too difficult.)

It is 85 degrees outside, and Ms. House Sparrow is not the only one who would like to bath in the warm and enviting sun patches in our shady backyard. There is Master Chip the Chipmunk who is making very hasty trips from garden to hole in the log...hmm...looks fishy...there's somthing in his cheeks! Actually, the little fellow has seen me, and now he is tearing by me like the Tazmanian Devil, and squeaking, as if I'm some really ugly monster....I wonder if I am.....all the animals look at me like that.....Well, here he is, hoping he made just enough noise in that direction, so that I wouldn't notice that that he was really coming from the dirrection of radishes and salads and all my delicious herbs.

I really like days like these, where it is too early for raspy winged cicadas and the violinists, I mean crickets, that practice their instruments high in the great big maples, and it isn't hot enough so that I would need a cold beverage the minute I step outside. It is just the temperature where you want to walk along in the unmown grass, bare foot, and feel the warm earth. And don't you just love the feeling when you step into the shade, and the grass feels so cool compared to when you were in the sun?