Summer Evening Observations

I'm currently sitting outside as I write this on my little netbook. It's another beautiful evening. The air is cooling slowly around me as the sun sinks lower into the sky. It smells like evening; the grass smells just a little damper, a slightly musty earthiness is in the air.

The puppies are calmly chewing on a stick that Rory procured from...somewhere. I love watching the puppies when they're like this. They're sitting side-by-side on the grass, both have an end of the stick and they're chomping quite peacefully. They do that a lot with toys as well. They each take one end of a toy and together, in perfect synchronicity, they march off, heads held aloft as they proudly take their toy to a new place to chew.

Of course, my perfect moment of peace has been temporarily broken. The Dog Whisperer has just emerged from his house shirtless to pet the puppies. No, I am not joking. The puppies just decided that their peaceful stick-chomping time was over and ran over to the fence to chase a bird. Dog Whisperer's wife was taking out the rubbish and she came to say hi to the pups. Soon enough, out swoops Dog Whisperer. I really wish he'd put on a shirt. He has a sizable pauch and he's just...not nice to look at.

Still, now he's going inside and I can go back to my peaceful observations. I have my mosquito fan clipped to my trousers and it's keeping the bugs at pay. The fireflies are starting to come out too. I love fireflies. I think they're one of the most amazing things. I can watch them for hours as they glow at one another in their oddly beautiful mating ritual. It's one of the things I love about Midwestern summer nights.

The nice thing about tonight is that I don't have to work tomorrow. Since I have a doctor's appointment in the morning, I decided it would be nice to have a whole day off to make my weekend four days instead of three. I'm also taking the pups to the vet to talk about getting them spayed. It's a tough decision. On one hand, I know it's the responsible thing to do. With the Dog Whisperer's male dogs and the other neighbour's male dogs, I don't want to see what happens when my girls go into heat. On the other hand, they're my babies and the idea of them having surgery is a little scary. Hopefully the vet can talk us through it and help me know that it's the right thing to do.

There are clouds of gnats out in my garden. They're odd things, gnats. They hover, thousands deep, in a cloud above some mystery point on the ground and just gather. They're horrible when you walk into them but you mostly don't see them until it's too late. I like the fireflies a lot more. They add an accent to the evening that's just...pretty.

I keep waiting for the rabbit to emerge. I noticed little bite marks in the lone cucumber that's growing on my vines. I think the vines are dying because of the flooding in the garden- they've gone all yellow and yucky looking. But this cucumber has persevered and it's still growing. I just hope the rabbit doesn't get it. Maybe I should take a cue from Larry the Possible Serial Killer and use human hair as a deterrent. Unfortunately, I don't think I can do it though. It's just too creepy. I could use bloodroot, as my mother suggested but it can be harmful to animals and I don't want to risk that.

Still, there's no sign of the bunny tonight. Just bugs of all shapes and sizes. It's a peaceful evening in my little garden, not even the Dog Whisperer's beasts are out to make any noise. It's the type of evening that makes me happy I moved back to the Midwest because here, I can just sit, blog and enjoy a cool, summer's night in my own back garden. It's strange how comfortable it feels but I suppose that's why a home is a home and not just a house.

I suppose I'm just feeling lyrical tonight. I hope you don't mind. Thanks for joining me on this summer night in Ohio. Close your eyes, smell the grass and picture some fireflies and you'll be there in spirit with me, Sookie and Rory. We'll save a glass of wine for you.

Happy Friday!