the world is crawling with life

squirrels have been darting out onto the roadways lately and flinging themselves at my car. it is a terrible, terrible situation. and then yesterday i went into the basement to do some laundry and i saw something greyish move around in the shadowy depths. i thought, oh god, rats. i looked around and noticed things were askew, tipped over, messier than the mess had been. i saw more grey movement and then realized that the creature was not a rat at all, but a squirrel. two squirrels. hanging out in my basement. chattering. and tipping things over. i opened wide the door to the outside and a squirrel scaled the wall right up to the door, and then scampered off further into the basement, rather than outside. so the whole time i did my laundry i did it with the fear that a squirrel was going to fling itself at my head.

and as if overnight, the edges of my yard have errupted with poison ivy. the tree that we were planning to hang the awesome new hammock from, poison ivy has wound itself around the trunk and crept high up above our heads. poison ivy by the gate. by the firepit. at the edge of tashi's playspace under the big pine tree. poison ivy everywhere. a friend told me to cover it up with several layers of newspaper and then dump dead leaves on top. a great idea for select areas. i've been doing it, but i'm going to need a lot of newspaper. and unfortunately our dozens of bags of leaves were picked up by the city weeks ago. blargh. if there are any charlottesvillians who want us to come and pick up their bags of leaves, let me know :)

and the hawks. i can still see the huge nest in the tall pine tree two doors down. it's amazing. it looks like the home of a giant prehistoric dinosaur bird. occasionally i'll see the hawk's tale sticking out. and when i'm lucky, i see the hawk standing at the edge of her nest, and then taking the plunge toward dinner. the other day we were on our deck and i heard the tell tale cluck, and there were two small hawks, right there just feet away from our deck, hanging out in the tree. and a few days later tashi found a beautiful hawk feather in the grass. we're hoping they'll take up residence in our yard too.

today the irises are blooming. and everything is verdant after an amazing and much needed monsoon shower. there are fuzzy caterpillars crawling up the sides of our house. the cats are rolling in the dirt, lounging on bricks, tramping through poison ivy, sitting by the basement door wishing i'd let them have squirrel for lunch.