The Colbert Report

It's been too hot to be outside---but I'm ever aware that the wild creatures who share their space with me can't share my luxury of choice about staying where it's cool. The life that teems out there has not stopped just because I'm not there to observe it.

All it takes to find a topic for a blog-post is to show up. (Wish I could remember to apply the same principle to my more intentional writing endeavors.) This morning, no matter the high heat, I spent a half-hour weeding in Sarah's 21st birthday garden, and sure enough, much presented itself about which to comment---mainly the hawk next door.

At first I wondered if it was one of our abundant bluejays mimicking a hawk's whistle, as I've been fooled many times before. But these whistles seemed too long, too persistent, too loud for a jay. I stopped weeding to look in their direction, in time enough to spot the powerful and majestic silence of a hawk taking flight from the fence between my yard and the neighbor's into the leafy canopy. Had this hawk been watching me weed? I had been aware of its whistle while I worked. It continued from some higher perch unseen, long after I returned to my hoeing.

I half-expected the Colbert Report to begin. dkm