It hasn’t rained in the Hollow for over a month. The roads are slippery where the dry gravel slides as I walk, and it’s like walking through powder where the heavy construction trucks have pulverized the clay. It’s hot, too, which means I often finish covered in a fine layer of dust. The high temperatures have been in the high 80s and even 90—not hot for Alabama, but I don’t live in Alabama any more. The ten-day forecast predicts continued above normal temps. Hard to believe that in a post from two years ago I wrote about morning temps in the 40s!
The deer and turkeys begin showing up in the early afternoon and wait for me to serve their dinner. As some of you have seen, some stare at the house until I emerge, and other come running when I call (or maybe when they hear the corn hit the metal pans). The doe I call “Big Mama” and her fawns stop by most mornings, and I can’t resist feeding them. One morning they were in the driveway, and one of the fawns decided to drink from one of the birdbaths. (I keep water in a large wash pan in the meadow, too.)
One morning I looked out the kitchen window saw another visitor in the driveway. Fortunately he rambled off after I sounded the air horn, but not without turning around to give me a dirty look.
There’s not much else happening in the Hollow; I’ll keep walking and watching and let you know what else I see.
French Broad Hollow Ramble 