June 6

I came upon a small snapping turtle this afternoon making its way in earnest across Grove Street, having just exited the Anna Maria field and headed in what I can only assume was toward the wetland on the pond. Why it had come from the fields is a mystery, but it was making this journey in a seeming bee line; I watched it going slowly across the road, until concern impelled me to give some assistance.

This snapper was approximately 6” in diameter, coal black, and full of energy. Unlike its painted cousin, which will go docile within its shell upon being handled, the snapper was all fight, wriggling in defiance and trying to use its clawed legs to dislodge my grip. It was successful, as my hold was tenuous to begin, seeing that snappers have the reputation of a nasty bite, and I dropped the little thing back onto the road.

Wouldn’t you know, it pulled its head in slightly, splayed out its back legs and reared up and down somewhat rhythmically, seeming to take in air with each lift and expel it forcefully on the down. This made a slight hissing sound which only reinforced my decision to leave well enough alone.

After a few moments, it resumed its beeline, finally making the tall grass on the opposite side of the road, headed toward more peaceful locations.

Notes:

Blue-eyed grass in bloom

Deadly nightshade in bloom

June 5

Transit of Venus

Exactly one year ago this very day we witnessed a miracle – two really, if the manner of its appearance could also be counted.

We had known for months (years actually) that the rarity of Venus passing directly between the sun and the Earth was to occur on this very day, and viewable for much of the event in our location. These transits of Venus are celestial rarities, happening in pairs separated by eleven years, and then not again for over 100 years. The transit of eleven years ago wasn’t visible from North America, so we had just this one chance to view the transit. After this, very few people, if any, would be still living to witness the next.

Halley predicted transits of Venus in the early 1700s, and he instructed future scientists (known then as natural philosophers) of the 18^th century to mount expeditions to the far corners of the globe so that the transit could be viewed from differing locations. With variant timing of the entry and exit of Venus across the sun’s disk on account of different vantage points, Halley claimed that parallax could be used to calculate the relative distance of the planets in the solar system. Halley knew then that he’d never live to see his instructions carried out, as the pairings weren’t until 1769 and 1780, well after his own death.

It is astonishing and inspirational to read accounts of the voyages and hardships undertaken during both these early transits, with years spent in preparation to capture the few precious hours in which Venus ingresses, transits, then egresses the sun’s disk. So many factors could conspire to thwart the effort.

We had been waiting for weeks, knowing just like the explorers of 200 years ago when to expect the transit’s beginning. With luck, we’d have a few hours of viewing, before the evening sun would set below the horizon, preventing our egress view.

Four days prior an unusual nor’easter arrived, with cold, wind-driven rain that was forecasted for days. It was as cloudy as a bleak November stretch, and the morning of the transit saw a misty rain. At 4:00 pm, the clouds showed signs of breaking, with individual cloud shapes taking form among the leaden sky. At 5:00 there were small patches of blue, and we quickly ferried our telescope up to the farm parking lot to set up and wait.

Ten minutes out, the clouds parted, and the sun shone brilliantly for the first time in days. I held a white sheet of paper in front of the eye piece, set back far enough so that the image of the sun from pointing the telescope in its direction was cast as a dinner-plate sized projection, complete with sunspots shown clearly on the paper.

With our friends as witness, we watched. “There!” someone called out, and the first bubble of Venus made its push into the bright disk, as a tiny dark circle slowly traversing across.

We watched in silent wonder for fifteen minutes, knowing that millions of miles away Venus was directly in line between us and the sun, moving inexorably in its orbit like a celestial machine, predicted for this very day over 200 years ago.

The clouds closed back upon us, and the sun shone no more that day. It was indeed a miracle.

Notes:

Yarrow in bloom

Birdsfoot Trefoil in bloom.

June 4

It really is worth observing the dragonflies, either in flight or at rest. My childhood summers in Michigan were filled with both dragonflies and damselflies on account of the lake and surrounding wetland. We had no shortage of insect hatches, and the big dragonflies seemed always on the move or resting on the dock in the summer sunshine.

I don’t recall being afraid of the big ones, since we were surrounded by them since childhood, but I suppose the first few encounters were a little terrifying; they are intimidating looking and will remain relatively still until you just approach. We learned a technique for bringing our hand in slowly, with finger extended, putting it gingerly underneath the monster’s eyes until it reacted by climbing onto our finger. These were our own pet dragonflies that would stay so long as we didn’t move suddenly.

They would be up to 5” long from menacing head to reticulated tail, green and black stripped, with small yellowish spots on their thorax. Their eyes were iridescent facets of green, bulbous and sinister, and they would cock their heads quickly as if regarding how best to eat our finger.

On occasion, we’d discover a newly created adult, just emerged from the nymph after undergoing a metamorphosis to develop its mature form. We’d see them hanging, tail downward, wings yet extended and deflated looking, waiting for the blood to flow in its capillary structure to both firm and harden its final form. Dry for half an hour, then off it would go. Another summer miracle.

The damsel flies seemed more personable somehow, yet untamable to us boys, and we’d have to content ourselves in just watching them, often in looped pairs, flying about. It wasn’t until I was older that I learned about the meaning of the looped pair business.

June 3

The warm spell of last week has accelerated the arrival of the mosquitoes. We seem to have two versions just now, small ones that don’t sting when they bite and large ones that most certainly do. The former tend to congregate in the periphery of the yard, near the wood’s edge and low to the ground. It’s only after you’ve glanced down at your exposed ankles that you notice them and then too late. And my, do these little ones cause an itchy reaction.

The big ones are roamers, and they will follow persistently wherever you go. I just walked down to the lower garden from the porch, crossing over 100 feet of lawn, all the while waving my hands and slapping at my exposed skin. From a distance, I imagine I looked like a man out of his mind, walking and slapping (and cursing).

By coincidence and design, the dragonflies are also appearing. Each afternoon I’ve seen more of them hovering in the air ten feet or so high up, darting about looking for food.

Notes:

Spiderwort in full bloom.

King Devil beginning.

June 2

Walk the top of Davis Hill Road, on the knoll where the farm sits adjacent to the cresting field of sweet grass that is now waist high. In the morning sun, the gentle breeze causes waves in the grass just like the ocean, and you can see the undulations and shifts of the wind across the field.

Summer flowers are arriving in earnest now. The heat of the past few days has hastened their coming I suspect. Just here, tucked at the roadside between thinning tufts of sweet grass are bladder campion in bloom. There is also cow vetch and even red clover, both healthy looking, and I am surprised to see it this far along so early in June. A little further on, where the road descends sharply toward Route 122, daisies are out, white splashes bunched together with vibrant centers.

Notes:

Sweet William Catchfly blooming.

June 1

It was hot enough today to go barefoot just about everywhere, and our soles having been so long shod for the last several months felt strangely liberated in the dewy grass and hot roadbed.

Our feet are as tender as this meteorological summer which is casting off the cloak of a growing spring and settling into the business of production. Walking around was a tentative affair today, and more than a few times did I wince at some stick in the yard or hot spot of the pavement, gingerly repositioning my feet that need more time to adjust.

As children, my sister and I would arrive to the woods of northern Michigan after school let out, and we would forego shoes from the outset, though gingerly stepping on pine needle bedded pathways laden with acorns and leaves, roots and shells – paths that were our childhood highways from the cottage to our adventures near the shore or in the woods. We were tenderfeet in many ways those early June days of our childhood, carefree and full of promise much in the way this month begins.

Our feet would toughen, and the ginger steps and wincing movements became less and less as we accustomed to living in summer.

Notes:

Chickweed blooming in yard.

Wild columbine blooming.

May 31

May at an end, and I confess that I am always sad to see it go. June will bring its own wonders, and we will assuredly enjoy its warmth and light. But May has always filled me with renewal of spirit to see so many things reawaken fully in the rush to grow.

The dandelions that remain are mostly dressed in puffy white seeds, ripe for picking by children of all ages to blow and watch as thousands of white parachutes fall gracefully amid the current of air. So many thousands of seeds, and yet some will, despite improbability, survive to create next year’s plant.

These dandelions are a miracle really. One day they remain our familiar yellow form, a myriad of compound petals with seemingly as many tiny stamens within. Then, overnight it seems that they transform into the blowies, as we call them, no less a miracle in process as it is to behold.

It is nature’s exemplar of design, a perfection of engineering that William Paley might consider as evidence of an omnipotent creator. Its dispersal is a wonder, and its fecundity astonishing; I once kept seeds for three years, small parachutes with their treasure, tucked in a jar. Nearly all germinated upon planting.

May 30

Last night the temperature didn’t go below 60, and we were witness to a storm of lightning and wind near midnight, leaving the dawn leaf strewn and sultry. May, it appears, is ending less like spring and more like summer, and it is strange to think it nearly snowed only a few days ago.

The first crickets were chirping last evening as if to welcome the transition to June. Their strident calls are still tentative trials of new legs and rasping fiddles that will become more proficient over the next several weeks. I imagine that the grasshoppers have molted twice since they emerged; we saw a couple near the front garden several weeks ago that were tiny versions of the adult, surely the first instar that will grow slowly to become the big jumpers and flyers of our midsummer.

Fred was transplanting leeks across the road, placing seedlings one-by-one into punched holes in the row of white plastic. The white is stark against the predominant browns and greens, but it is a precautionary concession to the coming heat of the next several days; little leeks may burn in hot soil below the traditional black.

I walked the fallow row toward home after checking the transplanting progress and to see how the parent killdeer were faring. Despite being told by Fred the approximate location of the nest (near the end of the adjacent row of scallions), I almost stumbled right upon the small pile of rocks, pea sized, that were just in the open.

No chicks as of yet, but both parents made a fuss at my approach, placing their wings outward in a bow, calling and stumbling along the ground as if to encourage me away. I caught a glimpse of only a single egg, camouflaged like a rock, amidst the nest.

Notes:

Milkweed flower buds appearing.

May 29

I noticed that I left something off my list of invasives yesterday. I did so unintentionally, though I can’t deny that it is one of my favorite shrubs this time of year. As I sit here now in the late afternoon sun, the smell of honeysuckle is carried all around, a slightly sweet fragrance that would seem more fitting to accompany a sultry midsummer night than a waning spring day.

The bushes seem to thrive here, and I know we should fight them by pulling and burning – after  all they do crowd out the understory and shade-tolerant greens. But those small white flowers by the hundreds perfume the air, much like Jasmine we experienced in Tucson.

It is true too. Pluck a honeysuckle flower when it is ripe, pull of the petals and sepals till only the receptacle remains. Begin by pinching below the receptacle on the stalk, and roll your fingers so that you slowly squeeze, and the tiny nectaries within will reward you with a single small drop of clear nectar that does, indeed, taste like honey water.

May 28

Increasingly on the side streets, where the shoulder borders any woodland or wetland area, the Chinese Knotweed has become established. It was diminutive only a week ago, but now it is flourishing, growing at what I’d guess is an inch or two a day, spreading its bamboo-like stalks in a clone form and even readying its buds.

I purchased a small pamphlet on Massachusetts’s invasive plants, written in 1999, and browsed through the twenty pages or so to see how many we have here in Paxton. Unfortunately, we have nearly all, and several species that the authors list as potential troublemakers in 1999 are ubiquitous menaces here now.

Several weeks ago, I wrote about the reduction of our wild native plants, particularly wildflowers, and in no small way these invasives are contributing. They establish and grow and outcompete, robbing the natives of space and light and nutrients until only the invasive itself seems to exist as a monoculture.

As I write this, the garlic mustard has flowered and gone to seed, its many white petals falling away by the roadsides only to disperse thousands more offspring. The loosestrife is growing on the sedge zones of Asnebumskit and the lower marshes along Route 122. In a month or so, it will reveal its beautiful flower heads, each so fecundate that it is nearly impossible to prevent. We have our bittersweet everywhere, wreaking havoc on our bushes and trees, choking them as it climbs ever higher. There is the burning bush all over yards and borderlands. And the multiflora rose has taken hold, bearing sharply thorned stalks that invade like briar, making it difficult to remove.

May 27

The skies cleared late this afternoon following this bitter late spring nor’easter which brought rain and even a few flakes of snow so close to June. Looking ahead, the barometer is on the rise, and high pressure will bring a return to normalcy, a fact that is confirmed by the weatherman who forecasts upper 70s within a couple of days. Had this been midwinter, the result of this storm would have been feet of snow.

Just after sunset on the western horizon, an absent friend has returned and is now partnered. Venus and Jupiter are within a half of degree of one another, making a bright pairing even in the twilight sky. Astronomical charts also indicate that Mercury is quite close, but the skies are simply too bright to permit a viewing of this fickle planet.

Venus will be rising now, steadily each night, assuming her position as the evening star as she swings in her orbit catching up to our own and getting closer with each passing day.

The twilights are now noticeably longer, and so distinct from winter. These are the evenings where the grayish veil persists long after the sun dips below the horizon and also the light that ushers in the daybreak and birdsong at 4:30 in the morning. Astronomers explain it as the inclination of our axis, where the directness of the rays persists after sunset. We simply enjoy it as a softening of the evening, a chance to breathe after a working day or a time to ease awake in the morning before the chores.

Twilight and Venus in the evening sky feels like summer is slowly approaching.

May 26

The mints in the front knot garden have gone to flower, delicate and small their blossoms of pale purple and blue. We have several varieties of mint both in the garden and growing wild in the periphery of the lawn – cat mint, spearmint, lemon balm, and wild bergamot (or menarda). The latter has yet to even consider flowering, but in late June we should see its buds of soon-to-be fluffy blossoms of purples and reds. These are the bee balms or Oswego teas, and our visiting honeybees will frequent their area when the flowers arrive. The brilliant red of the bee balm also attracts our hummer, who can’t seem to stay away from the red splash but evidently isn’t overly satisfied, for he moves quickly onward each time.

The mints are a distinctively summer scent, and I enjoy tearing a leaf and rubbing it between my fingers. This is doubly so for the lemon balm, as it has a pleasant smell, which I wonder if discourages mosquitoes, much in the manner of eucalyptus.

Mints remind me of the shoreline vegetation on the lake in northern Michigan, where we would travel down to the far bay and beach our boats on the sandy shore. This area of the lake is kept pristine from human intrusion for several miles as has always been, and the shoreline today is the same as it was in my boyhood explorations. We’d walk the beach, dotted with reed grass and mint, where emergent toads by the hundreds would scurry away when approached.

I think of these memories nearly every time I tear a piece of mint to rub.

Notes:

Ruby-throated hummingbird returned to feeder.

May 25

We’ve finally received a stretch of good transplanting weather, and we’ll take it even if it is overdue. Rain has been steady since last evening, and the forecast shows cool and damp for the next couple of days.

In anticipation, they were busy across the road at the farm yesterday. Dozens of flats, with thousands of seedlings of differing vegetables, were brought forth from the greenhouse and placed on the driveway in front of the store, ready in queue for the transplanter and the field. It was non stop afterward, and I watched the tractor slowly making its way down rows across the street, with Fred and Louise seated low in the surrey chairs behind, picking plants out of the cells and placing them one-by-one into the holes just poked and watered by the transplanter wheel, as it slowly progressed down the row of plastic.

I took the hint to follow suit, taking my single flat of seedlings out of the cold frame and planting the three raised beds in the lower garden. This year will be cukes, peppers, lettuce, tomatoes, and squash, provided that the fates work in our favor and against the chipmunks, rabbits, crows and slugs, which have one or more given us headaches in the past.

This morning in the drizzle I walked between several rows of peppers and eggplants across the street, admittedly nosy in my admiration of yesterday’s work. It’s a pleasant sight to look down a row that is 300 feet long and see plant after plant of small seedling clones, each a vibrant green and yet blemish free from disease or pest, cast in relief against the black plastic and weed-free soil between rows. It is idyllic and fresh to see the seedlings at this stage.

May 24

Several roadsides on the outskirts of town, particularly those whose shoulders remain uncultivated, have wild geranium in bloom just now. My favorite is the upslope of Nanigian Road, just before it intersects Barclay Road (which becomes Rockland as you head toward Treasure Valley).

Here, amidst the green of new foliage, peeks through the showy pink flowers, each with five petals, rounded at the edge. There are fewer shades of pink to found in general now, as spring gives way to approaching June, where irises, lilies, and other early summer flowers ready themselves in purples, reds, oranges and yellows.

The stretch of road is far enough from the center of town that it is easy to see the agricultural history of Paxton; just at the top of the hill is a fallow barn, with hints of foundation to some structure, likely a dairy barn across the road.

To the left, down Barclay is a going farm with dairy cattle, I think. I enjoy passing here on the road to see the aging farm house, bleached white with blackened wooden shutters and a small porch in front. They keep a sign across the road that advertises hay bales for sale, $2.25 or thereabouts, and in the early summer the smell of mown and baled hay is everywhere in the air.

In a week or two, the geraniums will lose their petals, giving way to the developing seed pod that grows in an usual shape and gives the flower its common name, spotted crane’s bill.

May 23

The wrens have taught me a lesson in patience in two ways today.

In the mid afternoon, I heard the distinct trilling call over in the area of the new box I put up a few days ago. I had been resigned to rejection, thinking our pair had decided this year to nest in the honeysuckle bush on the edge of the access trail, pathetically only twenty feet from the new house.

One of the pair was flitting about, evidently on inspection, and I sat on the porch for a while to watch its movement. It (she?) would fly up to the box and land on the roof, pause to call in the trilling way, then hop down to the perch in front of the hole, peek in, then enter. She’d stay within for only a few seconds before emerging to take flight to the nearby woods. This was repeated a dozen times or so, before she seemingly left for good.

A half hour later she had returned with her mate, both entering and inspecting for a few minutes, then starting foraging trips to the woods for small sticks. I was smugly proud that my box was deemed acceptable.

I was, admittedly, concerned about the intelligence of its new occupants, as each would return with nesting sticks that were rather long and sinuous, clearly intended for base material in the bottom of the box before the upper layers of grass and fluff would be added. The birds would hold the sticks cross-wise in their beaks and try to enter the hole, failing of course as the sticks became caught (illustrating perfectly the adage of long pegs not fitting into round holes).

They would poke and prod, often dropping the stick to the ground, causing them to fly to the woods in search of another. Patience however did win the day, as the birds seemed to figure out the trick of tilting their heads to encourage the sticks to go end first, and I am happy to report that they have been busy ever since building and singing.

May 22

A gentle rain came last evening, coating everything and bringing desperately needed moisture. This morning, in the dewy fog, all the late apple blossom, viburnam and dogwood petals were laden heavily with water, drooping low and tired looking.

With a clearing sun, the wind blew in as the temperatures rose, and I watched the petals seeming to fall in harmony, then blow about on the street in swirls and eddies like snowfall after a light dusting.

It was as if spring were shuddering its final colors, readying for summer’s approach, and I for one am simply not ready for its departure. The naturalist Hal Borland wrote that “no winter lasts forever,” and I am afraid that such is true with spring.

We still have the sweet smells of our lilacs to remind us of the pleasures of this season, and the growth continues in field and forest with lighter greens giving way to the darker shades of verdant maturity. Our honeysuckles will bloom any day now, with sickly sweet perfume that reminds me of something pleasant from my summer youth.

No spring does last forever, and rhythms of the seasons progress one onto the other, stacking itself into this thing we mark as time.

May 21

I finally took down the old wren house that has been precipitously hanging by a rusty nail in an old oak just within the berm. For the past few years, a wren pair has called this box home, raising often two broods in the summer into fall, always flitting in and out to get food, and trilling incessantly in the manner of the wrens.

I built that box when we first arrived in Paxton, and the years and occupants have taken their toll, with rotting roof and chewed front hole. I recall haphazardly using the first hole saw I could find to create the entry, not really caring about the bird’s preference. Even the house was fashioned with no plan to speak of. It was simply a box with a lid, and a trap door underneath so that I could clean out the nest each spring.

Our wrens are just returning this past week or so, as we’ve heard them trilling and flitting about. I spent a few hours last weekend making a precise wren house, fashioned from plans by the Audubon Society and with a 1.25” entry hole and vented ceilings. I had placed the new box on a stainless steel nail driven in the same location. The old box lay sitting upright on the top of the compost pile.

Today, the new box remains untouched, though I’ve seen the wrens sitting on the roof of the old one.

May 20

The ants are on the move, both inside the house and out, now that the ground has warmed enough to encourage their emergence. Our sugar ants are particularly troublesome indoors; tiny little things, they seem to enter through window cracks and form small skirmish lines as they forage for any food and water source. We have a small invasion just now as I write this, seated at my desk, with a short trail of tiny invaders coming from somewhere near the sill and progressing close to me by the desk’s edge. They don’t make it too far beyond, for the cat is decidedly invested in picking them off one by one with her tongue.

Yesterday afternoon, I watched a singular black ant tirelessly work to drag a small fragment of a pretzel across the driveway. It was amazing really, to watch as the ant encountered the piece of food at least five times its size, then slowly drag it across the wide expanse of the pavement. I watched it follow a nearly straight line for twenty feet, I suppose using its antennae to sense the pheromone trail it had left from the nest. When it reached the driveway edge, it navigated the jungle of the lawn, disappearing with its prize into the wild.

Notes:

False Solomon’s Zeal in bloom

May 19

The baby bunnies are beginning to show themselves, and we have one that has been curiously and cautiously exploring the side yard near the bird feeder. It can be no more than the size of a closed fist, with richly brown fur, smallish ears laid back flat against its head, and dark eyes, nearly coal black, that watch unblinking for signs of trouble.

We watched it from our sunroom as it tentatively hopped from waning dandelion to new plantain, pausing only to nibble and listen. Often, the rabbits will nip a dandelion at the base of the flower stalk, insert the base into its mouth and slowly suck the flower within, much in the same way that people take in spaghetti strands to be silly. It is comical to watch.

Upon being startled by my opening the door, the little one scampered underneath the medium sized spruce that sits between the dooryard and the berm to the access trail. We walked over to see how close we could get, and the baby stayed deathly still, eyeing us with intent. Had we not followed its movement into the tree, there was nearly no chance of discovering this little one, for its markings camouflaged it perfectly beneath the spruce

May 18

Were we to experience this life for only one day, today is as close to perfect that I can imagine. The frenzied pace of spring growth is just starting to slacken and will settle soon into the productive maturity of what will be summer. For now, the sunshine is as clear as can be, seen through a brilliant blue sky that has yet to take on the sultry humidity of June and especially July. Everything around, seen in the radiance of its light, appears juvenile and full of promise. I am thinking particularly of this after seeing my first mayfly flutter by, pausing briefly to land on my shoulder before continuing onward in a struggle against the gentle spring breeze.

Mayflies remind me of my youth in Michigan, where we would see them erupt by the thousands to spend their singular adult day as a winged insect, searching hurriedly en masse for a mate, flying about over the dock and water before coming to rest and then death on the shore.

Mayflies are frightening to a child, as they look particularly menacing with such long bodies, large wings and split hair tails. They are, in fact, rather harmless, if not a nuisance as they fly indiscriminately about. Mayflies troubled me for another reason, on account of their brief time as an adult.

We learned how the adults emerged from their nymph form and spent a singular day out of the water. It is for this reason that the scientific name of mayflies belongs to the ephemera. Some would emerge on perfect spring days, and we would see them fluttering about in the warm breeze and resting in the warm sunshine. Others would arrive in the cold and rain of a spring storm, destined to know only of their single day as struggle.

I recall being overwhelmed to think of knowing only a single day as life and the cruelty or beauty that such a day might bring. There is profoundness in this, even for a child and maybe particularly so for me, as I know now how filled my summers were with sunshine and carefree days. I know now how fleeting this life can be and that fairness isn’t a necessary part of its design.

Notes:

Buttercups appearing near garden backyard.

May 17

Two rows of lettuce are up nearly two inches on each plant; one row appears to be a regular iceberg, and the other is red leaf, though it may be that the red tinge is only due to their immaturity. Strangely, there is a full tractor width path between where these two rows lie and the start of what will become another plot of some other crop. We’ve become accustomed enough to recognize that this strip must be unused for some reason, and so curiosity got the better part of me, and I interrupted Fred who was working one of the midfield tomatoes.

Evidently, during transplanting, as they were preparing what would have been the third row of lettuce, Fred indicated that he was driving the tractor slowly down the row in preparation, when he noticed a mother killdeer sitting recalcitrantly on her nest of eggs staring down the tractor in defiance.

Rather than disturb the nest, the decision was made to let the row be fallow, at least for a couple of weeks until the chicks arrive.

These killdeer nest every year in the fields, and their markings, eggs, nests and chicks are almost ideally camouflaged in the soil and rocks of the field. Normally, the only indication of a nearby nest is the squawking of the parent, flying away in a wounded fashion so as to lure away potential trouble. When the chicks do arrive, they appear as small brownish puffballs with spindly legs, walking quickly on fast feet. If they stop, they are nearly impossible to see, hidden so well either by their matched coloring or by the fact that their tiny bodies depart from view when they pause at the bottom of the plow furrows.

I suppose in a week or two, when the eggs hatch, we’ll see that fallow row planted.

Notes:

Common cinquefoil in yard

Ruby throated hummingbird appears