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Swarm Day
It wasn’t quite Texas-hot, but it was a reasonable facsimile thereof. 91F, and it’s supposed to be the same for the rest of the week. No rain in sight. It looks like September, but it feels July-ish. When I arrived home and stepped out into the front yard, I was immediately under attack. At least once a year, we get what I call Dragonfly Day, a hot afternoon in which clouds of dragonflies make their appearance. And I don’t mean “a lot” of dragonflies. I mean “Could someone please call Ramses II and let him know that another one of those plagues is going down?”-sized swarms of the things. They…
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Which Station Is She?
I saw her when I arrived home tonight. She had been in the same place last night when I got home, at the fence outside our bedroom window, in the shade of the massive pine tree. A new calf was with her then, but tonight, the cow was alone. She was lying down in the rough grass, her flanks smeared with dried mud that had crackled into geometric patterns across her dark hide. Her black face was coated with crawling flies, and foamy drool dripped from her mouth. The calf was nowhere that I could see. I approached the fence slowly, staying silent because I know that human voices spook…