(w/apologies to the late, great Elliott Smith for nicking his title)
lots of beautiful roses in our neighborhood this time of year.
it was 30 degrees here when I was in Seattle... very unusual. Susan got a kiddie pool for Malcolm who spent the warm days in and out of the pool running around naked as little kids do here when it is warm. The warm weather was followed by rain so the plants & trees have exploded with growth: our garden is a lush jungle and we're in one of the cycles of humid days w/rain then humid again... 'close' as the English would say.
But this is Thomas Mann's 'mist-shrouded North' , after all, and it is grey and clammy not very hot at all. We're nearing the summer solstice now so at this latitude (55 degrees) it is light virtually all the time: It gets dark-ish after midnight and it is twilight again by 3-4 am. The birds are going absolutely mad outside... they've set up nests underneath the clay tiles in our roof (as they do every year) and they're singing like homeward drunks by 4 am. The din was such the past few nights that I thought someone had left a radio on outside, all the different birdsongs mashing together into a cacauphony of whistles and tones, with the fledgelings under the roof all screetching to be fed.
Especially at this time of year, with all the migrant birds returned, there are more birds here than any place I've ever lived. I think it is because the suburban towns with their hedgerows and mature deciduous trees provide lots of food and shelter plus abundant supplies of food in summer... more than the evergreens of the Pacific Northwest can provide for most birds.
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