It has been wet and rainy for weeks now. Hot and humid at moments, but the earth is just rich and boiling with life.
I walked outside to get my mail, and the air was cool and breezy, like early spring. It has been thunderous today and the sky is leaden. The branches of the black walnut tree are heavy and hanging low to the earth with nuts.
I decided to walk across the street to the woods just to dawdle a bit, and was greeted by a mass of ripe blackberries emerging from the tangle of green at the edge of the road. I think I gasped. I gathered a handful and ate them as I walked, but before I took three steps I was embraced by a mulberry reaching down from the dark canopy of the woods, glittering mulberries dangling in streams. I sampled those as well. Who could resist?
There are flowers growing on the vines that climb the oaks, orange trumpety flowers that look delicious. I don’t know why. I found a fallen tree with pools of shining dark water caught in its trunk, ringed by tiny toadstools.
I have never seen these woods so alive and abundant. It is midsummer and everything is green and ripening.