Found a Polyphemus giant silk moth tucked in the switch grass, presumably to beat the heat or lay eggs. She�s about six inches across�the biggest moth I�ve seen in the garden.

Named for the cyclops of Homer�s Odyssey, they use those transparent eyes to distract predators via mimicry of the great horned owl.

This morning all this year�s seedlings go in the ground�about fifteen new additions, mostly perennial. Much anticipated day!

It�s been a curious time (to understate it) for us like everyone, including feeling more out of touch with our inner travel/city mice than we realized.�Oh yeah, says we�we do these things too, not just garden and worry and work, work, work!

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It was a revelation to take a few days off and see old friends and old haunts�or what of the latter remains.

Spent day three in Chinatown and Harlem, then apparently the country mice had enough heat and urbanity (the people, the people!), and headed back to the trees.

Passing time on day four until our overdue annual physicals, we shuffled down Central Park�s literary walk where we were met by a man giving his all to�.New York, New York. These vagabond shoes! Are longing to stray! Right through the very heart of it�New York, New York!

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Then, for the first time since getting hitched, we rowed the lake. Woulda had lunch at the boathouse were it not for blood work fasting. Romance meets practicality. Instead, we admired the turtles and the Dakota and Beresford.

Now we�re home and I�m thrilled to slide off my vagabond mules and into overalls and play in the dirt. Gratitude all around.

The day�s secret word: Amor.

We schvitzed our way from Harlem through the park and eventually to Alice Neel at the MET. I loved the staunchly figurative, gorgeously hued portraits, esp. of her children, lovers, naked friends. Here are some Factory queens�dig those preliminary sketches and unfinished spaces.

Everywhere the trees spoke to us, and everywhere we travelled on a cloud of secondhand weed. Perhaps the two were connected.

We ended the day at the spot where we got hitched. Amor!

NYC for the first time in fifteen months. The smell of burnt candied nuts and subterranean subway air as it comes wooshing up the stairs. So. Many. Humans: laughing, shouting, embracing, badly playing full drum kits, on wheels and in the streets, in poet�s revery and tutus. We walked most of the island below 14th remembering, mourning, hoping, crying, and later crashed into the sleep of zombies.

Our 12th anniversary gift generously presented over morning coffee, not so generously shared.� We love these sweet mice, and before this, humane trapped them one by one and walked them to a nearby field for relocation.� New era!

Ivy: Halloween bat toy must die!
Ziggy: Totally�you get it, sis.

Alfonso does his Canada Goose dance through the grasslands
as birds large and small�abandon nests or cross borders,
and the algae and milkweed bloom.