A lazy Sunday
It's getting hotter. Spring's here and that means summer has finally begun in earnest. We're on the tail end of our last cold front of the year, and highs are projected to stay squarely in the 80s for at least another week, after which the rains start to show up. We need it - this drought has been making it hard for the plants that were burned by our sub-freezing winter to bounce back. The grass in the courtyard is still brown. But this is the weather I really enjoy, when it's warm in the sun, the breeze is cool, and the air is dry. It feels like you can truly take a rest under some shade instead of just steaming.
I love being outside when it's like this so I went for a walk this afternoon. Saw the remnants of a hawk's catch from yesterday in two places, a couple of piles of plucked feathers where the hawk had hopped around with its catch while being harassed by other birds. Mostly blue jays - their upset calls were what drew me to the kitchen window to witness it in the first place. A jay had been pretending to call like a hawk for most of the week to troll the grackles, and this felt... retributive, even though I think the hawk's meal was a mockingbird, in the end. I'm happy there's a hawk around here. My home is close enough to the 'glades for it to make sense, but sometimes the expressway that runs between my home and the swamp feels like an impenetrable border when it's really more like a human river. Roads are their own thing, and birds can still fly over them.
Also saw an in-tact mahogany seed pod and learned that they split into five pieces, not the four I previously thought. I spent some time throwing it against the asphalt trying to split it open all the way along its seams, but it was a trooper, so I ultimately left it. They're the kinda hard that will dent a car and break a window if it hits the ground and bounces just wrongly.