Like the last couple of Springs here in Georgia, this one got hot fast.
By early June, it seemed like we were as hot as we'd be in July. When
you opened your car door, waves of canned heat smacked you in the face.
The pavement shimmered in the glaring sunlight. The only thing saving
us from being all brown and dusty by now were some well scattered
showers and a better than usual accumulation of rain in March and April.
It
wasn't like June 2004, our first full summer in the Deep South, when it
rained so much we pretended we were living in England as we spent
mornings indoors, having tea and watching The Secret Garden and Hope and Glory
over and over until we had the dialog and accents down pat. That was a
glorious year for the garden and the mosquitoes. What we didn't
realize was that those June rains portended a new phenomena for us.
Hurricanes.
Coming from the Midwest, we'd endured blizzards, deep
freezes and withering heat waves. We'd even run through hail in our
bare feet as tornado sirens blasted in our ears, but hurricanes were new
to us. We rode out Hurricane Ivan with a mix of excited curiosity as
it swept up from the Gulf Coast and rain-soaked and wind-blasted even
us, tucked up into the Northwest Georgia pine forest.
A couple of
days later, we named a litter of kittens after the Hurricanes.
Frances, Ivan, Charlie and the non-hurricane inspired Morris. They were
born on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend and we thought those fitting
name for those babies of a stray we'd taken in. Their mama kitty
McGuffy, had squeezed her thick, pregnant body into the crack between
the wall and our youngest daughter's bed when it was time to have her
babies.
Morris,
the last to be born, is a yellow, long haired tabby who turned out to
be a very large cat with a penchant for peeing where he shouldn't. We
still have Morris and, though he'd never earn an academic scholarship to
Kitty University, he's likable enough and the children love him. I'd
like to ring his maned neck for his bad habits, but mostly, I love him,
too. The ill-mannered oaf.
But I was telling you about the
weather. It was really, really hot here. And then, a couple of days
ago, we got a break from the searing heat and dripping humidity. No
longer was driving in my un-air-conditioned car a draining chore.
Now
I could ride with all the windows down and the sunroof open and not
feel like I'd just run a marathon. Where before I'd felt all hot and
sticky and crabby from the open air drive, now I felt a sense of
openness and closeness with the outer world. When the air-conditioning
worked, I would ride with my windows sealed tight, the outside world
banished as I tooled along in my hermetically-sealed existence.
When people ask Southerners and Southwesterners "How do you stand the heat?" and we answer "I go from air-conditioned house, to air-conditioned car, to air-conditioned workplace," we are not kidding.
Spring
and Summer and a good block of Fall in warmer climes means never really
breathing in the fresh air if you can help it. If you're even slightly
asthmatic, it could trigger an attack. Even if you're not afflicted,
you may find the boiled afternoon air to be hard to breathe.
So
the last couple of days, we've flung open the windows and enjoyed the
fresh air. Driving on the freeway, I'm inundated with the smells and
sounds of traffic. The large trucks make a terrible racket as I glide
past them. Sometimes there are cars, with the music so loud and
obnoxious, that I wish for a semi to come and drown out the throbbing
noise. Even the morning traffic jam is nicer as I sit in the far left
lane and listen to the tall, dry grasses rustle and whisper alongside
the idling vehicles.
But when I get out into the country, closer
to home, I'm treated to the sounds of birds carried on the wind and the
smell of flowers lining the roadsides and dotting the fields. And, of
course because it is the country, the occasional whiff of death
emanating from some unseen animal corpse hidden in tall weeds or silage
or worse, the smell from the factory chicken farm.
At home, we've
shut off the central air and opened the windows, as well. Now as I sit
writing, I can listen to the clicking of birds on the large, swing-arm
feeder. I can hear the bluejay and tufted titmouse knocking the
sunflower seed against the wooden feeder's edge to get at the meat
inside. I hear the flapping of wings as the female cardinal takes
flight, startled by the arrival of a male, and I eavesdrop on the quiet
conversation between the male and female house finch as they take turns
keeping watch as the other pecks about in the feeder.
The
other day I noticed that when a male cardinal is eating, he doesn't
mind if other bird species come along and join him. But if a female or
another male cardinal lands, there is a bit of a scuffle before only one
is left to eat. The mockingbirds, for their part, engage in rowdy
chases, making a pinched noise as they fly at each other. The male
redwinged blackbird, solitary and friendless, screeches loudly just as
he lands to eat. No one, but no one, is allowed to join him on the feeder.
The
swing arm feeder is positioned right outside the window to my left.
Around it grows an unruly Chinese wisteria that loops and dangles. The
birds have developed a queuing system of landing on the drooping vines
to await their turn in the flat, wooden feeder. This works well for the
sparrows and finches who blithely alight and hang on as the wisteria
bounces to a stop, mid-air. Sometimes, though, a larger bird like a
cardinal will try to land on the vines and they and the vine will dip
down, down, down closer to the ground. Quickly, I hear wings beating
as the surprised bird jumps to the safety of the air, leaving the
wisteria boing-boinging up and down like snapped elastic.
Last
evening, drowning out the sounds of the birds as they settled down for
the night, were the noises of our neighbors' barky dogs. In front of
us, the German Shepard dogs were having a growly conversation about
something exciting. Next door, the Australian Shepard and his companion
were debating something in loud woofs and an occasional bay. Beyond
them, the little dogs, a rag-tag band of chihuahuas and rat terriers,
were carrying on in their squeaky yips and yaps.
I wondered if
Sasquatch was strolling through the neighborhood again. Then there was a
crescendo of yelps and yaps and barks and then nothing except the
occasional soft note from the wind chimes.
This
morning, I've been treated to the good morning sounds of the wild birds
and the er-e-er-e-eeeerrrrr of the penned roosters down the road. The
occasional red-winged blackbird screams out as it prepares to dine at
the feeder and there are crickets adding a low background noise. Large
bees hover and glance at me through the screen. I'm relieved that they
are out there and I am in here.
The male cats, Tiger and
Pyewacket, exchange a territorial hissing and yowling through the glass
of the back door. A sleeping child, who apparently stayed up late
watching a movie last night, stretches on the sofa, breathes deeply and
turns over for more sleep. The curtains framing the large front window
shimmy on the breeze, as the sun and clouds try to agree on how hot it's
going to be today.
I like being closer to it.
Originally posted June 21, 2008
