“Mom, come here...”

Son D. called me urgently to come outside to see what he'd seen under a bush by the front steps. Inside the bush was, apparently, a hidden nest of baby cowbirds. Or a gaggle of fledglings? I don't know how we could have missed noticing a nest there! They were shrieking, as were the parent birds across the yard in Mrs. Tree. I tried to flip the snake away with a stick, but he didn't seem bothered. Daughter I. suggested that I go grab my iphone to take a blip. (You see how my kids look out for me?) The snake slid out of sight, the shrieking got worse, we went indoors, and awhile later we noticed a parent bird flying back and forth. I don't know how it all played out.

Lots and lots of admin work today and a much-needed grocery run. In the late evening, when I finally got around to watering the gasping garden, I was a little jumpy. Afterwards, heading back inside, I stomped through the shrubbier part of the path to alert any critters to stay away, in time to a favorite poem:

In the undergrowth
There dwells a Bloath
Who feeds upon poets and tea.
Luckily, I know this about him
While he knows almost nothing of me!
-Shel Silverstein

Fortunately, no snakes (that I saw). The moon glowed, somewhere people set off firecrackers, and the hunting hounds howled in the distance.