Beautiful morning

 As I write this, it's really only a bit to noon, but the fan on the porch is whirring a breeze my way, and the air is still a cool 73.  I've been on two walks already, taking advantage of the shady paths.  

On the way around the circle, one neighbor tells me she's been hearing so many birds this morning; she names them...a red breasted woodpecker among others...she has an app for identifying them by their sound.  I meet another who walks with me a while...we straighten out Life's affairs along the way.  On the second walk, in another area, one I used to enjoy while I stayed there briefly, I walk to deliver a guide book to a couple soon off to Switzerland. 

Even earlier than that, in the lovely 65 degrees of seven a.m., I had gone out to wait for Alexander to say a good morning before school, meanwhile pulling weeds and all those brown flaccid daffodil leavings.  I'd woken by 5:30, ready for the day.

Writing now, I too am hearing the enthused voices of birds...I have to identify them by sight since I don't have the app...a pair of cardinals taking turns among the elianthus, several finches busy pecking around for fallen seeds, rustling the tall stalks of the false indigo and the light purple thing I can't name, and a woodpecker I can't see, busy on the pine tree (I wish that were my photo above, but alas, I can't get birds to stay still for a photograph).  

Outrageously, at the side of the road in front of the house, two bluebirds, with their startlingly deep hued wings wide open, fight each other so fiercely they don't pay me any mind.  What they are at odds about there is anybody's guess...territory? food? jealousy? When they finally each fly off in different directions, their voices screech as if cursing each other.   Or maybe me? I shrug it off.

If this kind of day has me ready to burst out, yesterday was another story.  Our Memorial Day gathering over, the house already put to rights easily enough, being outdoors then meant barely an early 20 minutes sweeping the front steps and pulling invading grass from the front walk. The humidity was 86% for one thing, and the rising temperature mattered worse because of it. 

So I stayed in the house, dabbling at this and that, not very productively...a 6 on wordle, worse on quordle (the game cheated with a proper noun).  Looking for an activity I could do with some success, I started a wash and changed the bed linens. 

In between loads, I picked up one book for a few pages, put it down for another's few pages. Both were interesting, but I wasn't.  A neighbor stopped by for a brief chat ("I thought you weren't home at first," he said.  "Your kitchen light was out.").

As I was out of my chair anyway, I opened the porch, sprinkled some water on my newly acquired bamboo plant (a passed-on gift from one of the graduate-school graduates next door) and walked right back inside again. On the sofa with my feet up, I wrote a few thank-you's.  Up again, I wandered room to room, fixing a few out-of-sorts things and re-organizing the leftovers in the frig. 

Souls rising from woodland home, 2024

Late afternoon I shuffled into my workroom to address a piece that has had me frowning for a few months.  I think it's done now.  I checked my card calendar for June birthdays (the very first one, there can be no card for, alas...my husband's), and then, out of a vague, "someday"  idea of having a showing of art (because it's beginning to crowd me out), I began to pull bottom-shelf paintings to see what could be salvaged. 

Salvaging the day was what all that was about. By evening, I forced a decidedly desultory walk, after which I sunk into a few episodes of Shakespeare-quoting Rumpole and went to bed early.   

Yet, as it often happens, that ramshackle yesterday cleared the way for a more livesome one today. My list now has only one ordinary chore on it (it's summer, so I'm ironing linen wear).  For the rest, the more creative ventures.  Time to dig into the box of thick wisteria vine I took from a friend's chopping to make a new outdoor hanging...with fabric? metal? wire?  Time to see about a front panel for Alexander's tree house...barn door maybe?  Time to look up the new summer American Dance Festival schedule...Paul Taylor?  Ballet Hispanico?  Time for this blog.

Here's hoping your day livens into one you can make something interesting happen, too.