September 28, 2013

Both windows closed in the bedroom, a sudden dip into the 30s before dawn has driven me not only under a sheet, but under a quilt, to drink coffee in bed instead of out in balmy, star-ceilinged air fast becoming just a pleasant memory.

Snowbirds today, driving or riding in pairs in ATVs, touring on the Cascabel Road and as they stir up the clouds of dust that drift to form a low, inversion air dome that settles over me in the cold of the morning there’s no way to stop that song from coming to mind, that song DJs get in trouble for playing but can’t resist every year about this time … […]

Five Purple Martins fly through the powdered-up air, in a southerly way–there’ve been none for a couple weeks (and now, there will be no more martins after these.) Still, the day warms nicely, rises by about 50 degrees and the dragonflies come out in swarms at The Stockpond. Today Nancy, Tom and I see yet another new one, red and black striped, with clear but bluish wings, with red veins on the forward edge of those wings.

The three of us continue the job of digging mesquite, though a number of the little, nasty-thorned trees are growing out of gopher burrows and are easy to remove from the softened ground and air shafts. One shovel turns up an exquisite, one could even say dear, little toad, brown, with raised patterns that are bright Chinese red, as if it had adorned itself with garnets or rubies: the Red-spotted Toad.