The robin has left her nest. She was such a brave, patient little bird; likely it was her first attempt at motherhood. Her nest is a perfect work of art: a primitive weave, a deep and noble interpretation of dry grass and mud. It holds only one egg, dull, pale, almost transparent blue, beautiful even in its infertility. The extreme heat, the neighbor’s fireworks — it must have been difficult […]
I slept for a few minutes yesterday after lunch. When I awoke to the tender tips of the lacy green maple moving in the breeze, and the pine needles glistening in the light of the clear blue sky, and its swirl of upward-curved branches gently lowering and rising, I was nigh overwhelmed by the timeless, trembling, whispering intimacy of what was happening, not only outside, beyond the open window, but […]
This morning I ate a small dandelion flower. The bees are right. July 5, 2021 . [ 1155 ]
Found early this morning, fallen from the tree: a very ripe, very sweet apricot — I know, because I ate it right after washing off the ants. The house finches prefer drinking from the shallow glass water dish that we have hanging from the fig tree. The main birdbath, it seems, is a little too large and too busy for them. After watering the barrels, planters, and pots behind the […]
Creeping thistle in full flower, arranged in a honeyed, aromatic bank several yards deep and many yards long; an eruption of tansy, not yet in bloom; wild carrots; birdsfoot trefoil. Seven rabbits, one so small its fur is coarse and looks as if it has just been licked for school by its mother. Several instances of deer scat, some containing cherry pits. A week and a heat wave after noticing […]
Two apricots fell yesterday, and another during the night; they weren’t fully ripe, but they were sweet enough to eat — casualties, it seems, of the heat. The other fruit is large and coloring, two or three weeks ahead of the usual ripening time. Food and shelter is a miracle. It’s not earned. It’s received. I don’t deserve the food on our table and the roof over our heads; to […]
Silent, motionless, unblinking: after four years, robins have built another nest in the fig tree. I don’t know how many times I’ve passed under it without knowing it was there; several today; and recently when the heat was at its peak, I moved several potted plants into the shade, very near where the mother is patiently sitting. An ocean breeze has cooled the valley. Yesterday the temperature fell to eighty-seven […]
One hundred seventeen degrees. It may be that someday this lush green valley will be a desert. After all, it was once covered with ice. Yesterday we saw someone driving a big noisy pickup with flames painted on its sides. The bed was full of his beliefs and opinions, some of which blew out and were scattered along the roadside. He ran the light at Apocalypse and Ego, then sped […]
One hundred thirteen degrees. Yesterday afternoon, in the grass behind the house, we set a little sprinkler for the birds. It made a shallow lake in the shade. And out they came from the bushes, and down from the trees, children of the leaves. The tomatoes and peppers did not mind the heat. We protected the cucumbers with a sheet. We will again today. At four this morning it was […]
Found blooming along the path on the Goose Lake trail: ocean spray, chicory, and thyme; also daisies, blackberries, clover, and St. John’s wort. Barefoot a quarter-mile, upon an old maiden aunt’s carpet of drying grasses. The sound of bees in her parlor, made by a swarm in the largest of the black walnut trees near the old Mission cottonwood. Or is it her tea kettle? Just past the cottonwood, the […]
William Michaelian 
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