Belated Saturday Entry

The moon is 99% full tonight, and the sky here is cloudless, so the yard is very bright. I can faintly see the faint haze of captured moonlight from the white blossoms that have opened on the jasmine hedge. According to Farmer's Almanac the moon will be full on the 5th, and this is, appropriately, the Flower Moon. I first smelled the jasmine early Friday Morning.

Today I noticed that the flowers had opened on the three quarters of the hedge which I have not irrigated, but on the quarter that I have been watering a bit the flowers are there but are still closed. In previous years when I watered all the hedge, it all bloomed at once. It must be a characteristic of Jasmine for the flowers to open only after the soil has dried out to a specific point. I didn't water any of the hedge tonight, and I'll be keeping an eye on it to see when the flowers on the recently watered section open. For now, those that have opened are releasing more than enough fragrance to keep the night air heavily perfumed.

There are lots of moths fluttering about now, and more than a few have invaded the house. They brush against my face now and then, and frequently try to enter the computer monitor. I don't expect to see many of them fry themselves on my light bulbs this year, as I recently changed mostly to LED bulbs, and they are so cool that I doubt they could kill a moth unless it gets way up toward the narrow of one where the heat does concentrate. But so far I've only seen the moths flutter around the rounded ends. For the last couple of minutes a small moth has been perched inside the rim of my desk lamp, about an inch and a half from the bulb, but it is quite cool there.

So far I haven't heard any mosquitoes, but I expect them to arrive at any time. My first itchy bite of the year can't be far off. Why do the frogs vanish just when we need them the most? I'm hoping that one of the positive effects of not watering so much this year will be less water for mosquitoes to breed in, but it's too early in the season to tell.

My sleep schedule was very odd again today (or should I say yesterday since midnight just passed) and that has once again left me muddled and unfed. This might be another night for microwaving a couple of frozen burritos, as I certainly don't feel like cooking anything.

It's so nice to be able to have the windows open at night again.

Mooning

The official moment of the moon's fullness does not come until after midnight, but my sight is not fine enough to tell if the rising light is perfectly round or not. It's surely round enough for me. In the view from my back yard there is one small spot where the moon escapes a calligraphic tracery of oak twigs just before silhouetting a clump of pine needles. That is the last unobstructed view of it I'll get for hours, when it finally sails free of the freshly leafed walnut tree. I might be asleep by then, so I watched it through that brief clearing and listened to the crickets chirp.

I wonder if the crickets enjoy the bright nights, or fear them? It seems the light would make it easier for predators to see them, but maybe the insects are unaware of the heightened danger. Lovely things can have that effect. But perhaps the best time to be devoured is when one is rapt. Maybe that's the ancient wisdom the word carries. Maybe the idea of the word is like a hunting night bird, wings flashing moonlight as it lifts its prey into the sky. Watching the moon rise, all I can think of is how splendid it is, and I don't notice until later that the rhythmic chirping of the crickets is like the ticking of clocks.


( Sunday Verse )