This juvenile raccoon had wandered down to the water at the edge of our clearing in the Palm Hammock to get a drink and dig for insects. He or she worked away in the mud for a few couple of minutes before noticing my watchful eye. The wind was against my face, so none of my human scent made it to the water's edge. The animal knew what I was, though, and looked only for this one second when I snapped the shutter, the next second it had dashed off through the sedge back into the safety of the growing forest. There is much wildlife activity at the clearings now. In the area to the west of the pond, coyote scat filled with rabbit hair. On the east side, in the thicket of sedge leaves and dog fennel husks, a family of marsh rabbits have taken root. They nibble on the undergrowth and stay clear of predators, as much as possible. Underneath the dried leaves of last year's swamp flatsedge sprouts of dog fennel and capeweed and ground cherry start their annual parade of growth. Up top, the landscape has opened as the dried stalks of dog fennel fade into dust. The new season is upon us, poking its calyx and tentative primary leaves up into the morning air. Last year's excesses still stand in our presence, too, reminders of the season past and the great potential always lurking.
Historic days in Washington. Big changes for our nation. We still seem, in our media, lodged in older days. We seem to have some difficulty, our media, with ending old habits and so they still give voice to those dying ideas, pretending all along that they did not bring us to this brink. We hear the noise, like last year's husks of dog fennel, still crowding our landscape, but slowly, inexorably fading to dust. Next year's cape weed is underway, the day flower(Commelina diffusa) is blooming next to my recovering oak. Obama has laid a new seedbed as well, cultivating next year's florescence. Time alone will show its health.
