This weekend early summer crawled, slithered, darted, flew, droned, chirped, and bit.
Nature was everywhere inside and outside my condo. Parades of black ants feasted on kitchen delights that evaded my eyesight. The only bug I just despise—besides maybe roaches—was spotted worming its weird, feathery, hairy, multi-legged self up my great room wall. Without guilt, I ended his ugly little life. For the ants, I successfully swabbed a combination of clove, orange and lemon oils. Gone. Nada.
Each time I stepped out onto my porch, a couple of ruddy-winged wrens flung from the home they’ve made in the sea shell nest that adorns a porch wall. A fat-bellied brown lizard rustled the dried leaves at the foot of the fence as he slowly slithered through them, and then darted up wall if he saw or heard me.
I heard at least one drone, aka, the baritone warp-speed wings of a hummingbird speeding by, hyped on sugar sipped from my neighbor’s feeder. And more winged creatures, hidden high in the backdoor forest, conversed in a high pitch series of chirps as I dined al fresco in my lil’ patio garden.
I am reminded of these creatures of now as I claw at the mosquito bites spotting my ankles.
*The moth was spotted sometime last year. I started the car, which I’d backed into the garage, and before I headed out, he caught my eye. Silently, he spread his wings of color on a forest tree directly behind the fence in front of me. This post was originally written nearly a month ago. We’re well into summer now, but the weather has kissed us with a cool start.
