Earth Image Photography, Nature Photography, My Summer Office

6:57 a.m.-

Steam rising off the floor of the office is animating the fifty-two degree air. Deerflies are existent but scarce, except for two clumsy ones flapping sluggishly around EZ. Another hovered in like an ungainly cripple and landed on the tote where it's now trying to wake up. Two fawns, abandoned by Mom who ran away ten minutes ago, show only four ears swiveling and twitching above dewy grasses.

Mother Marigold has an inch-and-a-half wide orange bloom. Two other buds are readying to open. Junior is six inches tall and struggling to repair two broken limbs. No sign of blossom buds yet, but it's still early. A small grasshopper the color of Key Lime pie is sweeling feelers three times it's length out over the gunwale, sitting, studying the river, back legs pointing up then ninety degrees back. It looks like appendages superglued back on after being pulled off by a guilty child.

Out in the main river a large oak tree has been tipping over slow motion for years. Today it is nearly parallel to the water. Boaters must pass close to shore around its north side to get by. Two weeks ago I discovered a bird nest on a treetop branch, which, these days, is six feet above the river where pontoons pass close. A black and gray bird sat tight and refused to withdraw as we rounded the tip. The nest was still there two days ago, though without sign of life in it or a bird peering out from an internal limb.

7:42-

It's especially fun when bullfrog croaks croak simultaneously from the left and right a micro-second apart like an echo, or that ephemeral sound of two radios tuned to the same station in remote rooms of the house.

9:24-

EZ's having a fun time with a wide-awake horsefly. An inch long and purring a deep throaty hum, it's been circling her head and regularly setting down on her back for a rest. She feels it, and horse-shudders her fur. Sometimes it flies up, usually not. She strains her teeth toward it, stares her tormentor in the eye, but it's just out of reach. She rises. It leaves her and comes to pester me. EZ lies back down. Horsefly leaves me lands on her rear, just out of her sight. But I see it pawing her butt hairs like an agitated bull. She feels it back there, bends herself back, and snaps toward the invisible pest.

Horsefly knows it is safe. EZ snaps twice more then rears back toward the groping of tiny horsefly legs.

Horsefly pounces at her head. EZ chomps and whirls wildly and flips Momma marigold over on its side onto the floor.

9:38-

The horsefly is back, flossing its teeth by EZ's tail. She's pretending to ignore it.