MAGICAL

There are few magical things left in my life. The early morning fog is one of them. It inevitably rolls in, drifts among the forest trees, lingers in the nearby meadows, and vanishes in the wake of the sun by mid-morning.

Restless, ever-changing, mystic, taunting, elusive.... a haunted reflection of my soul.

The other morning I was awakened by loud banging. It wasn't a knock on the door. It was definitely like hammering. On my front porch!
I stumbled out of bed, disoriented and half-asleep, expecting to find somebody hammering on the house.

To my surprise (perhaps shock) it was a woodpecker boring a hole on the wooden porch railing!
I chased him away but he soon returned. Several times. I was finally forced to cover the railing with a large floor mat that I kept by the front door.
So far the woodpecker hasn't returned.

Another pair of birds made a nest atop the porch lamp by the front door. They do this every year and I try not to disturb them.

I don't know why the porch lamp looks green in the photo. Neither the house nor the lamp are green.
One of the birds that built the nest is sitting on the railing (I took that photo through my bedroom window). 

The weather has been hot, humid, unusually dry. No rain for a week - which is an extreme rarity here. 

This evening, just after sunset, I wandered out for a walk through the high brush in the front of my property.
Another magical moment.
There were hundreds (if not thousands) of fireflies everywhere, creating an enchanted light show.

I've always called them lightning bugs. I vividly remember them as a very young child when we still lived in New Jersey (before moving to Southern California, where they don't exist). 

I keep the blinds up on my bedroom window at night so I can lay in bed and watch the lightning bugs drift by.

The cats always look for the coolest places to escape the heat - which is usually the floor. 

 Bosco, yesterday afternoon

My eldest cat Kitzee (also known as Scratch), waiting to get her tummy rubbed. I took these pics of her about an hour ago.

My third cat Scruffy (no photo available) caught a mouse last night but, for some reason, let it go.

Despite having a trio of cats, I think I need to buy mouse traps. 

I'm tired of writing about silly, mundane things on my blog - but if I ever wrote about the subjects that I'd like to write about, I would be hunted down by lynching mobs.