After The Black Vultures Have Gone
On taking flight, stumbling through summer, and welcoming the autumnal equinox
“We come and go but the land is always here and the people who love and understand it are the people to whom it belongs for a little while.” ~ Willa Cather
One day in mid-July, I arrived home to find this tuft of a baby black vulture feather at my front door. The two young fledglings had begun to explore…the barnyard and fence, the roof, my gardens, the deck off my bedroom, and the flower pots on my front deck railings. They preened themselves and each other, stomp-stomped their feet, wet their legs with urine to cool off leaving evidence of their visits that I hosed away daily, and plucked leaves from mint and eucalyptus plants.
My adorable, curious summer companions.
I am not an early riser, but throughout July, I woke with a smile, hearing them gallop on the roof between 5:30 and 6:00 a.m. The parents helped them discover the deck off my bedroom, where they learned to tap the windows with their beaks. Winkle and Apple jumped with a start when the cats came close to the window, nose to beak.
I filled their wheelbarrow with fresh, cool water every morning while my coffee brewed. They spent their mornings ‘with me’ on one of three decks until a parent returned with breakfast around 9:00 or 10:00 a.m.
I kept my distance to ensure they did not imprint on me. And for a little while, it was magic. They knew they were safe. I watched in wonder and delight.
By July 25th, Winkle had already flown off to join the family community, but Apple was still here and woke me with taps at my bedroom window. I watched as Apple preened, picked at flower petals, hop-flew from one side of the deck to another, and then flew up to the covered deck off the back of my home. I hurried upstairs. I knew each day was one day closer to Apple joining the rest of the family.
With coffee in hand, I stepped slowly and quietly out the deck door and sat at a spot furthest from Apple, about 15 feet away.
For about 30 minutes, we hung out together—me sipping coffee, Apple ringing the wind chimes. After a while, Apple flew to the roof and then the front of the house and boated on the deck railing. To ‘boat’ is to sit with legs tucked underneath. It’s a position of safety and comfort.
After a little while, I looked outside to see that Apple was gone.
Late that same afternoon while working at my desk, I saw a familiar dark shadow over the barnyard. I ran outside just in time to catch Apple on the barn roof. In seconds, Apple took off, soaring over my roof, up and over the beech trees, banking Southeast, disappearing from view.
I am always sad when they go.
There’s a liveliness to each day that seems to shift to slow motion.
All the activity and newness of spring wanes and wilts in the hot of this Tennessee summer. The songbird fledglings sing but far off and away in the distant high branches. The spiders weave in earnest, threads sticking to my face just walking to the car.
August saunters in all thick and sweaty, proud of the offense it brings into the room.
Even the sunflowers eventually lilt in the blaze of August afternoons. The hot pink petals of purple coneflower fade like a favorite vintage linen. Flower baskets once lush with greenery reveal the stark reality of drought.
Days later, I see a rabbit munching its way through the weeds in my driveway several times daily. She hurries away the first few times she sees me. Then she gets more comfortable, not running but also not allowing me too close. I talk to her and ask if she has babies nearby. She eats my flowers. I don’t mind.
The hummingbirds are still here, zipping by the windows, reminding me to refresh their sugar water. Soon, they’ll migrate thousands of miles to South America. Astonishing that mere ounces of life propelled by minute feathers make such a journey. I realize I haven’t heard the Wood Thrush lately. I don’t remember the last time. The early evening hours of late August are quiet. A familiar signal that the seasons will soon shift.
Early September, the heat does not diminish. The rain does not come. I find myself irritated that the sun continues to demand attention. I long for a dark rainy day, a steady rain, the ease and peace of cloud cover. There have been maybe two such days in eight weeks. I would do well in the Pacific Northwest, I think.
I don’t make the most of these last days of summer. Tolerance, that’s what I can muster.
Sept. 30, 1906
Exerpt from “The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady” by Edith Holden
“Scarcely any of the foliage on the trees is truned colour. Some of hte Beech trees are quite bare, the leaves having shrivelled up and fallen off. This is doubtless due to the long drought there has been here. Weather still continues perfect: hot sun durin ghte day, cold and clear at night; mist in the mornings.”
I took an unplanned hiatus from Substack writing this summer for no particular reason, but perhaps because I tend to do that when building new habits. I often interrupt a well-done streak of consistency with a period of avoidance or sabotage.
In this situation with my writing, I still sometimes question the value of it. I’m not making monumental arguments or writing deeply persuasive, researched essays…though I hope to do that in the future.
I’m a champion of encouraging others to lean into the practice of writing. And a practice isn’t about perfection. It’s about the doing, however imperfectly. I need to practice what I preach.
Documenting nature's moments, days, seasons, and cycles has value. That’s why we read Thoreau and Muir, or Mary Oliver and Annie Dillard.
That’s why I have chosen to quote Edith Holden, who was born in 1871 and resided in the small village of Olton in Warwickshire, England where she wrote and illustrated “The Country Diary of an Edwardian Woman.” She allowed no one to see the diary she created. It was only published after being discovered 70 years later, nearly a half-century after her death.
That’s also why I have spotlighted the work of Edwin Way Teale in this post and others. His writings from the years he and his wife traveled nearly 100,000 miles across the U.S. documenting the seasons are a snapshot in time; a record of natural history, culture, climate, and travelogue from the mid-1900’s.
Exerpt from “Autumn Across America” by Edwin Way Teale
Chapter Nine: The Great Flyway
“All during my boyhood the Mississippi was a kind of unseen presence, aloof, almost legendary, lying off to the west, beyond the city, beyond the Illinois farmland that spread away to the horizon, beyond the horizon itself. … Thus began our four-state day. First the cardinal, then the goldfinch, then the bluebird, then the robin were the state birds of the land through which we traveled.”
“All the countryside of Missouri and Iowa that day was brilliant with the gold of sunflowers. They extended away over the fallow fields and up the hillsides and the along the fence rows. The sight brought back memories of another autumn, more than 20 years before, when Nellie and I had ridden west toward Wichita across the rolling miles of Kansas.”
Journaling prompt…
Take a few minutes to be outside and describe this first day of autumn. What do you see and smell? What do the falling leaves feel like between your fingers? Close your eyes and listen…describe what you hear. How does an autumn morning sound compared to an autumn twilight? Notice the details and write your own personal sensory history of this season.
So beautiful, Sandy! Thank you for sharing bits from these books, too.