This morning it's incredibly quiet and still. I spent the better part of it pruning—-I am amazed at how wild everthing has become. The rose of sharon bush is getting crud from it’s next door neighbor the choke cherry tree, so I trimmed both back. The bees hovered nervously as I cut back their meal ticket, the blooms of the rose of Sharon. Below, the bee balm has creeped in to the foot path and as I trimmed it back, I found it had taken over a foot. We ended up sawing down a sizable offshoot of the choke cherry, as well. Here we upset the catbirds who swallow down the dark purple choke cherries greedily, hopping from branch to branch to pick the choicest ones. I tried to attack the garden and restore some order to the tomato plants, but it’s pointless. It’s my fault I planted them so close together in the first place. After picking a few tomatoes—I hear they are slow to ripen this season—I inspected the cucumbers. They are prolific. I have to start making pickles.

There is no breeze but it’s not hot due to the thick cover of patchy clouds in the sky. I walked down to the dock to cut back all the growth down there. I brought my binoculars and was rewarded: a great egret fishing. I’ve seen it twice before already, stone still and beautifully, strikingly white, the only match being the water lilies that dot the pond.

I chopped back as much as I could and rewarded myself with a seat on the bench. The view is now obstructed by the purple loosestrife, tall and willowy, a bright shock of tiny purple flowers lining the top two feet so that when there are fields of it it’s a waving wash of purple. I wanted to put boots on and to wade out and chop them all back, but I was stopped by the constant buzz of what I soon realized to be hundreds of bees buzzing in the flowers, and I decided to stop chopping and leave to bees to their business.

The heat has filled our heads with thick cotton. We are like zombies. The night holds no reprieve. Bugs crawl on the computer screen, and they dive bomb the screen of the window in such numbers that it sounds like hail.

Even the too fast hummingbird has to slow down in its quest for nectar. The rose of sharon bush is in full bloom, the pink flowers cluster and beckon the little bird with the deep magenta centers. It looks dull and not much bigger than a big bumblebee when it perches, and it's surprising when it does. But only for a minute--then it's buzzing around again, and I am quiet and don't breathe so it won't swerve away. I can see its brilliant metallic green back and the bright ruby flash of the throat which earlier looked black. A male, I later read, the females don't have any red.

It's nice to see something so light, as everything feels so heavy. The garden, while exciting, is pendulous: tomatoes, still green hang down and the four plum tomato plants are like one big snarl of green; the cucumbers sprout prodigiously, grasping their iron clasped tendrils to pull themselves out further; peppers are beginning to curl out like little elf shoes. Today I tasted the very first grape tomato, and it was so real, so sweet. How a tomato should taste.

Every morning I inspect this growth, and every morning it boggles my mind. How the hell does it happen? And when? Right now, under my bug swarmed window, there are growing things, getting greener or longer or sweeter.

I am astounded by life; how can anything else be so amazing?