summer is great for remembering how times were as a kid. really, it’s such a nostalgic season, but not just in your mind, but also literally doing what you did as a kid. marveling at gorgeous summer sunsets. smiling as fireflies dance around you as you walk through the woods at dusk. biking down a dirt path along the river and passing log after log, half submerged in the water with families of turtles sunning — heads arched up to catch the maximum sunlight, tails and feet even stretched out. sitting in the car on a road trip – in this case a mini one, to my uncle’s for the day – listening and singing along to old music, feet propped up.

~ fox (crossing the street, many times now. eyes flashing in the glare of the headlights, tail always bouncy and beautiful.)
~ slug (in my left rainboot, just a little one.)
~ bird (in nest, on top of a ledge in the lower garage, sitting very still as i pulled the car in)
~ koi fish (only by the deck, the ones by the gazebo are gone – heron ate them(!) )
~ frogs (orchestra every night. my dad used to collect them by the bucket & take them to the canal where it’s all park land. my mom keeps dropping hints i should do it too. hm.)
~ tadpoles (there are so many they deserve their own line)
~ dragonfly (three days now, the same blue one, i think)
~ neighbor’s dogs (annoying yips)
~ our dogs (the best sweethearts)
~ my cats (loving their new cat beds & scratch lounge-things)
~ junebugs (pepper, my black cat from many years ago, used to love to snack on them)
~ fireflies (official summer bug, i love them.)
~ moth (giant grey beauty in the horse’s stable, and made a straight beeline to my red clogs. oh! and another one clinging to the side of a gas station pump. aqua colors. — just found out, it’s called a luna moth. )
~ horses (they’re getting re-used to the halter. and coats are gleaming. except when it just rained & then they’re encrusted with mud. they like to play.)
~ bees (ginormous ones and plain old little honeybees. wish we had a beehive still.)
~ beaver (chomping very loudly on some greens near the canal)
~ deer (many, most of them alive ;(. and one sitting by the side of the road with cars flashing their hazards as they parked, got out, and approached the deer. i kept driving but worried. :Z)
~ fish (fish tanks upstairs and downstairs. now that my mom’s back, she looks after them.)
~ sheep (at poole’s store)
~ turkey (ditto)
~ chickens (ditto. baby chicks too, but now they’re outside, no longer in the box in the store with a heat lamp over them.)
~ ducks and geese (fed them bread with my nieces & nephew last weekend, at a nearby manmade pond / shopping complex thing)
~ snake (in the stable’s attic, as i was loading up horse food. black little beauty.)

hi there ~

i’m in my room, on my bed, typing away on the laptop, and i hear a loud scared ‘meooow’. i know mamacat is sitting next to me, because every once in a while, even though i’ve asked her for years now not to, she gives me a hesitant wet little lick on my arm. so sweet but so startling and distracting and.. annoying! but it’s love. anyhow, so then i’m about to call out trouble’s name when i hear my mom say in spanish, ‘are you lost, kitty? what are you doing in my kitchen!?!’ trouble meows once more really loud, really lost, and i call out to her. a scramble of claws on the floor, up the stairs, into my room, up some more stairs, and a jump onto the bed.. here’s trouble, coming straight up to my face, tail waving all agitated. as soon as i pet her, a loud loud purr.