when shade offers no rest from the heat and the breeze feels like hot breath on your skin, there is only one thing to do…water the flowers… and yourself so you don’t wither!
Welcome to The Bramlett Mountain Foothills Cafe and Red Dust Spa! It’s girls’ day out today. Five lovely Jennies stopped by strutting their beautifulness, and talking turkey…Oh, I sure would love to know what or who they’re talking about! It was quite a spectacle worthy of reality show notoriety.
The sights we see here in the foothills! It was a good day, and started out fabulous…glimmery even! Five glimmers to be exact!
Stay cool my friends! Much love, peace, and glimmers to you!
the air is thick and wet earth barely breathing beneath clouds that have fallen from a purple sky at dusk…I am overcome by the sweetness of flowers
~kat
We’re having a heat wave. Someone asked me what’s going on with this hot weather? And I replied…global warming? But it depends on who you ask! 😉
But, seriously, it is breathtakingly hot…and not in a good, beautiful way! Here in Virginia we have the added impact of humidity. This clammy combination makes for oppressive heat. When I took a photo of my front yard this evening, you could see the moisture hanging in the air. Everything is a bit muted and cloudy.
As much as I loathe conversations that devolve into an appraisal of the weather, here we are … or rather here I am boring you with the weather! There is certainly no glimmer to be found in a heatwave, but I do appreciate those of you still reading.
I knew magnetic poetry would serve this topic well! The glimmer, if you can call it that, is the reflection tool in PicsArt that helped me express this sticky wet sensation of humidity in Virginia in swampy picture form. The photo backdrop above is not real. The actual unaltered view is below. The magic of photo editing is amazing don’t you think?
This is the actual photo of my front yard…
I know the world is downright wacky right now. Sometimes creating my own glimmers are all I can do to preserve my sanity (though some might say I lost that long ago! 🤣)
Exercising my creative side gives me such joy, I consider it glimmer worthy! But if you’re not buying it, there is always Mr. Bean. He’s 100 % glimmer!
I’m rambling…let me just say much love, peace, and glimmers to you, wherever you can find them…and call it a day.
in the deep, I am forever (as) the dust settles a gentle prodding you cannot wish our souls away wrapped in grace and trust… insanity reigns
~kat
The natural world is not always rainbows and butterflies. But it is a just and fair cycle of life. Sometimes I get a front row seat like today.
The day started like it usually does. A perfect summer morning. A bit of a breeze, which is always fragrant this time of year. This morning I detected a hint of honeysuckle. One of my deer friends came by to say good morning, so a tossed her a bit of corn to munch on. I had some errands to run…before settling in for a little cat nap.
And that’s when I saw him, a magnificent red shouldered hawk perched a few yards away from the bird feeders. It was clear that the finches, cardinals, wrens, tits, cowbirds, and mourning doves had sent out the alarm…best to take shelter…danger from above. (Ironic, isn’t it, that humans in various locations are exercising a similar practice these very days…but for much more selfish, malevolent reasons…power, greed, and hate…but I digress…)
The hawk, though his shadow from above scattered the smaller critters here in the woods, he was not being hateful or vindictive, or even monstrous. He just had an empty belly to fill, and the felled tree trunk beneath him just happened to be home to several smaller rodent-types. Field mice and chipmunks, snakes and lizards. I know he has harvested birds on occasion…the splattering of feathers is a dead giveaway.
But today poultry was not on the menu. He was looking for a snack (I suspect this because there were 1/2 a dozen squirrels collecting seeds under the feeders, and he was not interested in the least.) I stepped away from my window seat for a few minutes and when I returned, he was gone, either bored from the blight of fresh options or he had found what he came for. To my delight all the birds had returned to the feeders, the squirrels were beneath catching the seeds that dropped to the ground. And I thought, what a lovely glimmer…life goes on.
But that was not the end of mother nature’s glimmer show today. Soon a turkey hen made her way to the feeders to pluck seeds from the ground…and to my surprise and delight she had a young chick I tow, showing it the ropes on this little acre in the foothills.
She even introduced it to the red clay hill nearby and showed it how to take a dust bath. Life does indeed go on!
Mid-summer’s Eve in the Bramlett Mountain Foothills ~ Photo by Kat Myrman 2025
fantastical indulgences on a mid-summer night
if I never filled another feeder with sunflower seeds, millet, fruit and wheat berries, if I never broke bits of bread tossing them into the back yard for the crows…or laid peanuts on the edge of the covered porch deck for squirrels to snatch … if I never scattered feed corn for the deer and wild turkeys who meander by each day at dawn and dusk, or never dissolved white sugar in warm water for the hummingbird jars hanging just outside my window…
the birds on this acre on the edge of the woods would still go to sleep bellies plump and satiated, the crows would have plenty to feast on…nuts, insects, eggs, and even carrion, the squirrels would happily gather hickory nuts, grains, berries and seeds, the deer would munch on juniper berries and graze on clover with the rabbits, the turkeys would busy themselves plucking grubs and mites from the red dust, and seeds from the soil, and the hummingbirds would sip sweet nectar from flower cups alongside the butterflies and honeybees
these gentle friends don’t need me life will go on when I am gone, but oh, how I’d miss the little community we’ve built, a utopia based on kindness and respect in this shared green space that we all call home sweet home… and I’d like to imagine that they would miss me and my rambling one-sided conversations too. I wonder if they’d miss the moments that we share space and breath and eye contact wrapped in grace and trust… I like to imagine that they would
~much love, peace and glimmers to you!
✨✨✨💚kat💚✨✨✨
Today’s lovely glimmers…
A latecomer…who wanted to be part of today’s glimmer party…the local bandit! ✨💚✨
a phoebe fledgling fluttered in the rose garden a failed first flight her parents hovering close by ‘til she found her wings and soared
a gentle prodding is sometimes all that we need for a leap of faith
~kat
Yesterday, there were three phoebe chicks in the nest over my garage side door light. Year after year I’ve watched a pair of phoebes build a nest under the eave of our house. The cycle of life commences.
The laying of the eggs, one a day over several days. When the laying is done, the mother settles in for the long haul, perched over her precious brood, day after day, rain or shine. Her devoted mate tends to her every need, feeds her, stands vigil nearby, protecting his family. After only a few weeks the moment long awaited comes and the chicks emerge from their shells. Mom and dad spend their waking hours feeding these hungry featherless babies who are all mouth. They grow quickly until it’s time to fly free in a matter of a few more weeks.
This morning I noticed that the nest was empty. Another brood joining the flock that returns every spring to our acre. I noticed though that the parents were still near, agitated and not at all happy to see me. Then I saw it. A lone fledgling on my front porch stairs near the roses fluttered as it looked at me while the mom and pop swooped around me. I was concerned little tyke was exposed where the crows frequented, so I moved it under cover on the wicker settee. Soon after the parents came over, I suspect to encourage it to spread its wings. When I checked a few hours later the little family had moved on.
I have seen nestlings fail to survive on occasion and knew the sound of the parents mourning. (yes even tiny phoebe parents mourn the loss of their young who don’t survive.) But today, the sky was blue and sunlit. And it was silent but for the soft rustle of wind through the trees. I like to think that this little family is somewhere riding the wind. At least that’s my hope.
It reminds me that all families are precious…every single family. Every single soul. It reminds me that life offers us opportunities every day to recognize this fact, to be kind, and sometimes we are honored to help too. It costs nothing to lend a hand…to show kindness. May we seek those opportunities and rise to the occasion when presented with them.
So it is easier for you to find all the parts/chapters of my ongoing fiction series, I created a new page that lists all the links. You can check it out HERE!
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like mercury colliding... 