on awareness

We worked in the garden today. We work in the garden most days, although some days I opt out. We worked in the garden today in the heat because rain was supposed to be coming, although it has yet to. The big job was planting the hard white corn and the blue potatoes. Although the husband thinks we are late, we are not really late getting it done.

I mowed. Right now everything is ahead of us. The grass is waist high in places so it's hard going. But it all needs to get done. I used the clippings to mulch some red cabbages after we'd filled a bucket for the rabbits. That'll cool their dirt a bit and hold some moisture in for them. He did a great job making baby cabbages this year, so there are a lot of them. The bottom of the rectangle garden got another tilling. It has a nest of wild rabbits in it that we are avoiding! They won't be there long before they are grown.

It was hot. The garden water jug was empty. People were so done. I went to my chair in the shade, so glad to have it, feeling like I would never have the wherewithal to walk the distance uphill to the house. The others began their walk one at a time. When the husband passed me after checking the mail, he was moving slow and said, "You may catch me on your way up." I said, "I doubt I'll even start before you are there."

And there I sat, uncomfortably hot but grateful for the breeze that was blowing. At first, it just seemed quiet without the mower and the talking (although the five of us don't talk much while working). Then my ears tuned in to the birds, faint and far away. And there I sat, noticing a tent caterpillar climbing up my boot. I flicked him away and he lay motionless on the ground and I felt slightly bad.

And still I sat there, still sweating, still feeling like I might never feel like walking home. And the birds got louder and closer, at the back of the garden and up in the woods. I pulled out my Merlin app to see what was there. To my surprise, no Carolina wrens which last year I seemed to have every day. Maybe the season is early for them. But the red-eyed vireos were about as common last year. I don't know that I've ever seen one. The tent caterpillar started crawling, and I saw another near him in the grass. They like the wild cherry tree that is blooming to my left.

And there I still sat, less sweaty now but still not close to walking. The birds got louder and I again turned on my app to see who it was this time. I don't know that I've marked a white-throated sparrow before, but it was there with one of my favorites, indigo buntings. The buntings sounded like maybe they were making a nest on the wild side of the rectangle garden as well as down in the bottom where we first saw their nest. One of the tent caterpillars suddenly touched my leg and I wasn't sure if it was a sting or just a shock from his bristles touching me. I brushed him off and he lay motionless in the grass. Did I hurt him with the suddenness of my movement?

Not that I care for tent caterpillars. If I could reach their tent, I would tear it apart so the birds could get them, but at the same time, these guys were just going about their business, not bothering anybody. Maybe they just have an opossum kind of reaction, a fainting goat kind of thing, because the next time I looked, he was wandering up a stalk of clover.

By now I was just about recovered in my chair and the birds were talking all around me. A Swainson's warbler, the app said, at just about the same time as my phone picked up a signal and my notification sound of a turkey gobble fooled the app. It made me laugh. And laughing, I knew I was ready to walk.

And walking I noticed the differences in the ash and the beech leaves, and marveled at how grown up the spot that last week had hosted the morels, but I forgot to notice if my prickly pears were growing yet.