Simple Pleasure #2: Stargazing

Walking barefoot on my lawn late at night, feeling the warm summer breeze on my legs and face as I discern the planets from the stars. The cool green blades poking up between my toes and giving way to my heels like a plush green carpet.

Ursa major and Cassiopeia wink down like old friends. The city lights are too bright where I live to make out the other constellations, but their component stars fade in and out like snippets of conversations overheard at a giant, cosmic party.

I used to be able to 'hear' more. Time spent in farm fields, forests and boats during my youth netted me a greater understanding of the sheer vastness of the night sky. Back then the stars used to shout at me. Now they only seem to converse with each other in their own foreign language, without pause to see if I am keeping up. I still endeavor, knowing that if I lose the magic of the stars that I will lose a large portion of my childhood that is still precious to me.

It's ironic that the more we learn about how big our universe is, the less of it we can see.

Out & About

The Mallard was AWOL for a while last night:

It turns out she was just playing in traffic:

So I went along the side of the house to look at my flowers:

While I was gone the mallard came back:

Here is another video
(Listen for her huffing and puffing toward the end):

Close Encounters

That Mallard is still nesting in our planter. I've been afraid to mow our lawn lest I should upset her or somehow usurp nature's balance with an internal combustion engine. Our house was starting to look like one of those garbage houses that you hear about on the news, where the water has been shut off for the past 6 months and the people inside have been pooping into garbage bags.

I couldn't stand it yesterday so I finally mowed the lawn. Much to my amazement the girl was as cool as a cucumber and allowed me to do my thing. I got about my business as fast as I could and now we are no longer an aesthetic blight on suburbia. Except of course that we still cannot plant anything in our planter, because there's a duck already planted there. Squatters, I tell ya!

Here are some pictures I took this morning.
I'm not bashful anymore.
I just opened the front door and leaned out and took these.

I shot a video too: