Walking

Numenius and I decided as part of our walk today to walk into Davis for lunch.

It’s not very far, but it’s something I don’t do nearly enough. You see different things when you walk, as opposed to riding a bike (or, of course, driving):

1) a red wasp, similar in movement and general size to the blue mud daubers we have waiting for the hot weather to come (we’re having a freakishly cool June);

2) a tree in flower in the Arboretum we couldn’t identify, but wanted to, whose flowers are like snowflakes with green stems;

3) the shifting shadows on the bark of the trees in the Redwood Grove;

4) a secondary covert feather of a red-shouldered hawk;

5) a bug (true bug) neither of us recognized, only on the bladderpod (currently half in bloom, half in seed)

6) the fact that the star thistles (an invasive weed) are able to grow through tarmac.

Lunch was good. So was the DVD (which we watched at my office on the way home) of the making of the St. John’s Bible, which featured these vignettes of local insects and flora too. It felt all of a piece.

Approaching our driveway I spotted the turkey which had apparently been hit by a car and was down the bank by the bullocks, under the California black walnut. The barred feathers confused themselves in the dapple light. I want those quill feathers…