seen this morning
Jun. 24th, 2020 07:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
asakiyumeIt's a drought here, and there's a water ban. Grass lawns are burned gold except where trees shade them---there they're still green. (I don't have much of a grass lawn: mine is a lot of thyme and clover and hawkweed and sorrel. Where I have grass, it's the same as everyone else's.)
I went for a walk this morning under a drifting gray sky and saw many good things. I didn't have a camera so you'll have to bear with words. I saw the red-winged blackbird royalty, the princes with their scarlet epaulets and gold fringe, and their wives, more drab but just as territory-proud. I saw elderflowers and, on the corner where I always see it at this time of year, tiny bindweed flowers. At the community garden I saw a flock of goldfinches, which my sister says is called a charm--a charm of goldfinches--perching on tomato stakes and then flying off in their rising-dipping flight, like needles through cloth.
Across the street is the highway department, where, at 7 am, they were having, apparently, a convocation of orange Asplundh bucket trucks, maybe/probably to cut tree branches from around utility wires around town. Highway department employees were in fluorescent green t-shirts and jackets, like firefighters. I saw one guy arriving, hurrying out of his car.
"Is it bucket truck day today?" I asked.
"You bet," he said.
Along the way, I saw chipmunks, which dashed off under the Virginia creeper and poison ivy. One was so tiny, the size of a mouse instead of a rat.
"How did you get so tiny?" I asked, and then began thinking about if you could grow small instead of big.
I went for a walk this morning under a drifting gray sky and saw many good things. I didn't have a camera so you'll have to bear with words. I saw the red-winged blackbird royalty, the princes with their scarlet epaulets and gold fringe, and their wives, more drab but just as territory-proud. I saw elderflowers and, on the corner where I always see it at this time of year, tiny bindweed flowers. At the community garden I saw a flock of goldfinches, which my sister says is called a charm--a charm of goldfinches--perching on tomato stakes and then flying off in their rising-dipping flight, like needles through cloth.
Across the street is the highway department, where, at 7 am, they were having, apparently, a convocation of orange Asplundh bucket trucks, maybe/probably to cut tree branches from around utility wires around town. Highway department employees were in fluorescent green t-shirts and jackets, like firefighters. I saw one guy arriving, hurrying out of his car.
"Is it bucket truck day today?" I asked.
"You bet," he said.
Along the way, I saw chipmunks, which dashed off under the Virginia creeper and poison ivy. One was so tiny, the size of a mouse instead of a rat.
"How did you get so tiny?" I asked, and then began thinking about if you could grow small instead of big.
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Date: 2020-06-24 01:27 pm (UTC)I hope all those critters and flowers and trees get rain soon!
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Date: 2020-06-24 03:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-24 01:53 pm (UTC)Thank you for sharing. :)
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Date: 2020-06-24 03:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-25 06:34 am (UTC)Very true. Back when I was able to get up early (long story short: for about the past two years, for varying reasons, I just haven't had the energy--have needed to sleep when I could--to wake up before dawn), I liked to take my prayer walks before sunrise. The only drawback to that was i wasn't able to observe much. Got to see lots of shooting stars, though. :)
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Date: 2020-06-25 04:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-24 01:53 pm (UTC)I love chipmunks. (Or chippies, as my great-grandmother called them; I never met her, but my mom has quoted her so much on this that I think of it every time I see one.) They're just so small and sleek and adorable.
I love all your word pictures. Almost like taking a walk myself!
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Date: 2020-06-24 03:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-24 03:42 pm (UTC)She was from upstate New York -- that branch of the family were farmers in the Ithaca area. (Some still are there, but no current farmers, as far as I'm aware.) I have no idea if it was a regionalism or just hers! We spent a week or three up there every summer when I was a kid, and I never heard the term from anyone else, but I also spent most of the time with family anyway, so I don't know that I would have. My mother's family is also pretty prone to wordplay and coining nicknames, though, admittedly, so who knows!
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Date: 2020-06-25 04:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-24 02:03 pm (UTC)I hope you get rain soon.
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Date: 2020-06-24 03:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-24 04:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-24 02:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-24 03:22 pm (UTC)Thank you
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Date: 2020-06-24 03:06 pm (UTC)Evolutionary selection pressures do work to diminish animal species occasionally. There's a well known phenomenon called "island dwarfism:" Small animals tend to increase in size (compared to their mainland brethren) while large animals tend to shrink. Has something to do with the lack of predators plus the relative scarcity of food.
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Date: 2020-06-24 03:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-24 07:35 pm (UTC)I like words, and these are especially good ones.
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Date: 2020-06-25 04:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-24 08:01 pm (UTC)That's delightful. Do they cast magic, these charms of goldfinches?
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Date: 2020-06-25 04:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-25 12:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-25 04:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-25 03:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-25 04:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-25 12:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-25 04:52 pm (UTC)