It's Still Life

I’m thankful for the Eurasian Jay with its three young ones who visited me in the garden on Tuesday. Such a beautiful bird. I’ve not seen one in West Sussex before today. They were busily sucking up the ants who were readying to fly.

The ants are flying, which is called “nuptial flight“, and the birds are gorging themselves with winged virgin queens. The ants with wings are born with wings, and will become queens after mating with males from a different colony. Assuming the queen isn’t trod on, or eaten by a bird, she’ll rule her colony for around 10-years.

Summer salads when the weather turns ridiculously hot. Watermelon. Ice tea made with fizzy water. English strawberries. Dark sweet cherries. Yum. 

And—Danish butter cookies layered with ice cream (priceless).

My cool-air-blowing-collar thingy. It’s a life saver during a heatwave, and it certainly kept me from melting into a sticky puddle during our heatwave this week.

A break in the weather with a bit of welcome rain and a temperature drop of 10ºC. It was 33.5C earlier in the week.

Thankful for a crisp salad with most of the ingredients coming straight from the garden — except for the eggs.

I don’t have hens.

Well, okay, and I also don’t have tuna in the garden.

Happy to see that my crow, who isn’t really anyone’s crow, returned to greet me after I was away visiting family in America.

I reckon he was proving a point: it’s not fun being left behind.

Six Sentence Stories and a trifecta this week: one from The Book of 27 and two from Brigid who’s driving south from Scotland.

Oh, and I’ll not mention The Old Woman With No Cat series — oh, sorry, I mentioned it. Okay, then … you’re invited read the latest one in which The Cat Creates a YouTube Account.

ps: that’s, Emma, my granddaughter’s cat. The cat’s name is Thessaly.

I have no cat.

Thankful for the opportunity to hone my prose and storytelling muscles with 100 words at Microdosing Fiction.