Summer Starts Tomorrow

The back garden, Flippist World Headquarters, 2011

In our small town the wild ducks and geese strut about as if they were the ones who paid the taxes. In the last couple of years the addition of derelict properties and newly-empty lots from tear-downs to the city has all sorts of "new" birds gracing the skies and trees with colorful plumage and song.

Gangs of Goldfinches swarm in the early evening, socializing on the power lines above my driveway. Every block has its resident cardinal, each bird with a slightly different song. Jays flash their blue plumage as a sign of authority, while the Mourning Dove sings the vespers of this avian congregation. Even the raucous Crows seem a little mellower this year.

With the extended cool and damp spring, the vegetation is as verdant as I've ever seen it. For a place that just recovered from six months of snow cover, this is as close to paradise as the Great Anoka Sand Plains ever gets.

Summer starts tomorrow.