Busy Backyard

An everyday joy for me is watching the wildlife from my lounge chair near the cedar fence blocking the shelter belt. Capricious breezes bounce the walnut leaves as if they were on a trampoline. Squirrels make their precarious journey from the ends of the branches with a prized walnut in their jaws. I’ve watched them carry the nuts to the ground and bury them. Lunch for later snacks? I wonder if they remember where they are and if they ever retrieve them. Not a bird anywhere. All gone to warmer sunnier climes and I miss them. I hear traffic swishing along the freeway and the mournful whistle of the lonely train on its way to the Hanford site with a load of supplies for workers on the waste tanks. When I worked in the 320 building years past I didn’t hear that train. Too engrossed in my editing work or attuned to co-workers. But the sound here is muted by my tall trees. How high they are compared to the two-foot seedlings I planted those long years past. I savor my lemonade as I sit back in their shadows and plan a watering system that will sustain them for the remainder of the summer.

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