I’m preparing for a flute recital in September. Here is a beautiful piece that I hope to learn some day, but it won’t be for a day in September.

We got about 20 quarts from our blueberry bushes and they are done for the season. Then these disgusting worms arrived. Carl picked off, heroic fellow that he is. And this is our fourth hen to go broody this summer: Princess Bitchess. She used to be such a sweetheart. As you will see, not so much right now.

Hop aboard! Here is the daily morning Chicken Train. Very endearing and deceptive given how mean they are still being to Toey . . . though she has, with trepidation, dared to sleep on the roosts again.

Here are some photos and videos from the day the guys from the Harris Center came to band the baby kestrels. Stressful for both the birds and me, but everyone survived the experience. (Though Bird Conservation Director Phil Brown’s hands will carry scars. Apparently, even baby kestrel talons are talons.)

Photos and movies of the month include a microblast wind that flipped our outside couch and table top across the patio—but left the stalwart chickens admiring the activity with no apparent harm; kestrel babies (photo credit Phil Brown of the Harris Center); a turkey in the chicken area; voluptuous peonies; and a hotly contested race of our rubber duckies, with our rubber frog and tadpoles as referee and audience. And an unwelcome spider.

Nature has been fabulous lately . . . depending on where you live, but I live at Darwin’s View and here the weather has provided a little bit for everyone. I will note that nature is fabulous until ants invade the house and Carl finds a toe-biting beetle swimming in the pool. Then nature takes on a darker, less appealing tone. This day has been one of those days.

Porcupines are cute but not welcome. They eat the sweet new growth on trees. All too often that kills the trees. All too often, people shoot porcupines. Here, we merely encourage them to move on.

A friend of ours midwifed ten baby goats into the world two weeks ago. This weekend filled up with another visit to baby goat land—waves of them leaping and cavorting on rocks while some of the visitors brushed Maybelle, the resident dairy cow.

The turkeys are in full regalia for spring. The Hens race about, slightly reminiscent of armadillos, while the Toms strutt their stuff.

Frod’s handyman works just like Carl and I do! The evolution of this frog’s home is amusing and remarkable in its resemblance to how Darwin’s View developed.

These are photographs from the snow storm that hit on March 14th. We got about 2.5 to 3 feet of snow, but the snow drifts were up to Carl’s chest. We were snowed in for the first time in our 30+ years of marriage. Even Carl admitted defeat.

This is “Darwin’s View”! From north of Mount Monadnock to Mount Monadnock herself and onward south to Massachusetts mountain range and then east to WaPack and NorthPac. Quite glorious in any season and on any given day—but fall, with its brilliant colors that tickle the eyes, is my favorite.