A Summer Day

What a day. Still hot and dry, although there are a few showers in the southwest corner of the state. I am exerting all my energy to move them just a bit further north so the FF garden gets a drink. Although ducks and squirrel gather bird seed scattered from the feeders, mostly scattered by the squirrel sorting through for sunflower seed, geese also gather for a snack under the feeders. The usual gaggle has about a dozen and, much of the time, they take turns being the look-out. The designated guard doesn’t eat while the others are feeding, it keeps its head high, looking all around, ready to sound an alarm if I make any move to get closer. They are more skittish than the ducks, probably because folks around the lake don’t like the mess they leave as they pass through. I can walk to within a couple feet of the ducks, but any move on my part sends the geese honking and squawking to the air and back to the water. The neighbor next door is finished mowing for the day. I could not see a difference between where she was mowing and where she had yet to mow. When she finished her ride, she immediately restarted the sprinklers. Watering is a daily event, which leads to mowing every day or two. Human obsessions are certainly varied and interesting. It is so easy to judge her need to water and mow as wasteful and my need to water dogwood trees and azaleas as environmentally good. Both are basically wasteful. There is beauty, as some define beauty, in both and yet, neither is important if there is no clean water to drink. Sigh.