seen this morning

[asakiyume]

It'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.

Comments

[sartorias]

Lovely lovely word pictures.

I hope all those critters and flowers and trees get rain soon!

[wayfaringwordhack]

Photos are nice, but your words let me see things your way, an insight which I always enjoy immensely.

Thank you for sharing. :)

[genarti]

A charm of goldfinches! How marvelous!

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!

[queenoftheskies]

That sounds like a beautiful morning walk.

I hope you get rain soon.

[kore]

This is so lovely.

[mallorys_camera]

I am loving a "charm of goldfinches."

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.

[sovay]

I didn't have a camera so you'll have to bear with words.

I like words, and these are especially good ones.

[osprey_archer]

a charm of goldfinches

That's delightful. Do they cast magic, these charms of goldfinches?

[marycatelli]

How lovely!

[amaebi]

Galopagification.