Clear

May might well be the busiest month of the year at Roundtop. Birds abound, with residents arriving and setting up housekeeping and migrants stopping for a few minutes or a day and then moving on again. Deer abound and are beginning to bring out their tiny fawns. I can’t turn around without seeing something new or different or unusual. It’s hard to get anything done around the cabin when there’s so much to look at.

Last night Dog and Baby Dog started to bark and wouldn’t stop until I investigated. Five adult deer and a tiny fawn were nibbling their way up the mountain just behind the cabin. I guess the dogs thought we were under attack by a herd of deer SEALS. The deer paid little attention, no doubt knowing the dogs were inside.

The wild geraniums are blooming, adding their pale lavender shade to the green of the forest. The trees have all leafed out so much now that my view has disappeared again. It will be late October, perhaps even November before I see it again. It’s not just the next-door mountain that’s disappeared either. The sky is nearly gone, too. I see tiny pinpoints of blue through greenery, but to really see what’s going on up in the sky, I have to walk out to the end of my lane.

So perhaps that still-encroaching cocoon of greenery is the reason I’m posting the view this morning across Barrens Valley, just over the mountain from the cabin. There, the sky is open and crystal clear and nothing blocks the view for as far as I can see.