Darkness has fallen...

... with windows still wide open to the night air and the house is filled with the chirp chattering of frogs and the occassional sound of birds calling to each other from one black bush to another.

This morning I woke up to a bird in the chimmney. It's a yearly occurance when birds, thinking that the tall steal pipe is a tree, try to make a nest in it and end up getting temporarily trapped. That is until I got up, opened the windows, the flue, then the doors of the woodstove. Out it flew, flying over the cat, the couch, and bam into a window that wasn't open, but half expecting this I went to it with a towel, scooped it up, and set it outside on the porch. Anu, the woolfie and I watched over it, waiting for it to regain consciousness. It was golden brown with specks of silver and beige, blues glinted off feathers touched by a certain angle of light. A cowbird? What was it, I'm not sure. But she had a long beak and shiny black eyes that eventually returned to focus. She hopped to the arm of a wicker chair, watching us, and we watching her, until eventually she flew off. Another bird survived. Maybe one of these days we'll actually get that screen put on the chimmney. But I must admit, except for the potential danger of injury, I do enjoy having birds flying around inside the house... especially wild ones.

Later on, for the first time this year, I worked in the garden where I pulled out dead stems, hoed, shook dirt from healthy weeds, and considered what should be planted and what should be left to come up on its own. Plump worms rose to the surface. I don't remember ever seeing them so early, but its been a warm spring. Clumps of lavender are already showing spots of pale green beneath the damage of winter. I wonder if the tomatoes that V. and I brought back from Italy will reseed themselves. Last year they froze before they ripened. I'm still curious to find out if they would taste as good grown in our Minnesotan soil. Or maybe some things just taste better far away.

Alternating between working outside and reading... all day. Now, after a long bath and lighting candles, it is late... and I don't feel like doing much of anything except listening to the night.