Rural

M esmerized by a shred of a willow leaf  snagged on a spider's web,   spinning like an ice dancer in the hot breeze, it felt as if I was melting into the cement step. Watching the white cabbage moths darting through the air above the garden from the cement steps out back they appeared to be a fluttering white mass of snowflakes among the petals of the blooming flowers. It was too hot to get up, so I imagined the slithering  earwigs munching lacy patterns in the kale, and the slimy slurp of the slug as it devoured the most succulent tips of my baby zucchini.  Thoughts of the crunching sound the s quat oval caterpillars would be making while they gobbled the beans, their fuzzy hairs turned a bilious shade of pink ran through my head.  It was just too hot to do anything about it So I m entally squished them instead and crossed that off of my list. A black crow drooped morosely on the potting bench while prising open a peanut shell ho...