It is August in Georgia, and the days are still hot and humid. So deal with it.
The way I have come to deal with the dog days of August when I am outside is simply to sit. And to sit as still as possible. Do nothing to work up a lather. Mainly, I “adjourn to the R’nP’.”
That’s what I call my side porch. It’s where I do my best rockin’ and ponderin’.
It’s in the shade. I’m (relatively) still. The mind clears. Often, I wind up waiting for the entertainment committee to do its bit in the neighbor’s large side yard, which has an open space rimmed on two sides by thick brush and some big-boy trees. Most of the time nothing much happens, but sometimes there are surprises. You just have to be ready.
The big surprises come easily. They immediately focus your attention, sometimes even taking your breath away. I have watched a turtle speed-waddle across the clearing.
Then there is the neighborhood fox, red on its head and back, with black legs, showing up at odd times, from midnight trotting down the middle of the street to mid-day stalking of some smaller critter. Then he will suddenly squat and scratch. I’ve seen hound dogs quit scratching sooner.
Deer visit fairly frequently, and, mind you, the R’n’P lies only a few blocks from the courthouse. This year a doe and her two spotted, spindly-legged fawns first appeared in June.
The fawns, always together, went about exploring their new world. Like three-year olds imploring somebody, anybody, to “watch this,” they would jump for no reason, dart three or four steps, and make a 90-degree turn, only to stop for a couple of tentative nibbles at grass.
Days later, the fawns raced across the clearing to the brush on the other side. No sooner was that done than Mama deer came bolting out, racing to the other side. You could almost hear her telling them, “You have had breakfast. I’m outta’ here. Go play in the yard and learn to eat grass.”
Then there was the owl. A large, hefty creature out hunting at dusk. It suddenly and silently emerged from around the garage, soaring right to left, across my line of vision, not 25 feet in front of me and not seven or eight feet off the ground.
Not a whisper of sound.
And then it was gone, all in a couple of seconds.
Majestic.
And then there are the little critters you normally wouldn’t even notice – unless you are sitting still on the R’nP’ and waiting. They are the ones that bring questions and rouse a sense of wonder.
Cicadas – or as they say down in the country, “July flies” – the dominant sub-species in this part of Georgia spends the better part of a year underground as a rather pre-historic-looking pupa sucking on tree roots, preferably those of oaks. When the adults emerge in July, they leave behind a hard husk, attached to a tree.
And they come out with a roar, at night and with only one thing on their little minds: boy meets girl. I have no idea how they can make such a racket. Combined with crickets and maybe tree frogs, the hours after dusk easily make up the loudest hours on a 24-hour clock. Yet their loud, rasping calls to attract mates have a mesmerizing, calming effect. It is a summer night in Georgia, and life is happening out there in the dark.
There are others – the hummingbird checking me out, hovering not three feet away, eyeball to eyeball, mano a mano; then brrzzt, two feet to the left, same drill; a third time, brrzzt, two feet to the left, hover, eyeball to eyeball; then pppshow, 50 feet in another second, off like a bullet. Amazing creature. With something like 8,000 wingbeats a minute, the boy needed a sugar fix, and I reckon he saw nothing sweet sitting there in my rocking chair.
Then there was the little green lizard with the puffy red throat trick (male, no doubt, showing off for the girls). There were the non-descript but messy little house finches who persisted in building nests on the porch’s corner posts.
Meanwhile, the afternoon sun highlights the engineering intricacies in the triangles and circles of a web built by a little bitty orange spider the size of a beat-up pencil eraser. Legs about 1/8-inch long. Head no bigger than a pencil dot. How much brain power can it have? How does it know how to build that web?
How DOES it know? His mama didn’t teach him.
From deer to spiders to humans, the world we share is full of marvels and wonders. Sometimes you just need to sit still for a while to see them.
And be ready.