Observations on a Summer’s Day in August

“Quick, out with it, you!” said the rabbit. Her friend the squirrel had just taken a rather large nut which she had found by the wayside. The rabbit was rather found of it and had wanted to keep it for herself, and so had spent the afternoon playing with it, turning it this way and that.

“Yes, this is just what I needed,” she had said aloud, the first time she spotted it. It was so very large and so fun to look at it, all shiny and brown and glinting in the sun overhead, that she merrily sat down on her hind legs and began pawing it back and forth, from one soft paw to another, and back again. The nut spun, spurted around and kicked up dust. She let it roll about, as if it were alive, her new plaything on a splendid day like this. After a time, she felt a little knackered and looked over to see a rather inviting patch of long green grass huddled together. She gently let her precious cargo roll away and settle some ways from her as she hopped over to enjoy the lovely bit of grass for her afternoon snack.  

The squirrel, her friend, was a rather mischievous sort of fellow, and had been hopping from one tree to another, wondering what to do, when he spied that wonderful little nut sitting by itself—uneaten and alone.

My, that looks quite delicious, he thought, and jumped down and landed on a fence post that bordered someone’s garden. He walked along it until he came close to where the rabbit was eating her grass shoots and jumped down from his perch, making his way slowly towards her. And there beside her, sitting idly of its own accord, was the tasty nut.

He wondered what he should do. Had the rabbit, his friend, found the nut and planned on eating it for herself? But he remembered that rabbits do not like nuts and tossed the idea aside. Maybe she was going to give the nut to him as a present? That would be highly thoughtful of her, even on a day like this when there was no holiday to celebrate, or one he could not remember at the moment. But he settled on the notion that the nut just happened to have fallen right beside her, without her noticing it. He felt much better with himself as he quietly approached her, with her back towards him, as she enjoyed her fresh green meal. Reaching out a clawed paw, he stretched himself out, not wanting to disturb his friend. One of his little paws lightly touched the top of the nut and he sighed to himself. Nope, she had not seen him.

He then felt a little braver, creeping towards the unsuspecting nut, eyeing it deliciously. The dirt scuffed under his paws as he managed to get himself almost right on top of the nut. With hardly a second thought, he thrust out both of his paws and took hold of the nut. At last, the prize was all his!

Then the rabbit suddenly looked around. “What are you doing with my nut?” she asked.

The squirrel dashed off, putting the nut in between his teeth.

“Hey, that’s mine, give it here!” said the rabbit as she chased after him.

The fence post was in reach and so the squirrel ran up it in three bounds and stood atop.

“Mmhumph mmm,” he said.

“What?” she asked, “Could you take that thing out of your mouth so I can hear you better?”

“Your nut?” he said, spitting out the nut and holding it up in his paw, “I thought it belonged to no one. It was just sitting there, as it was, unattended, unwanted, and ready to be eaten.”

“Well, you thought wrong!” she said, “please give it back to me.”

“What are you doing to do with it? Eat it? I know for a fact that you would rather have a fresh bit of celery or a carrot to munch upon, not a nut.”

“I didn’t want to eat it,” she said, “I was just playing with it. It is so much fun to roll about. Then I became famished and made myself a snack of that grass over there,” she said pointing behind her. “I planned on going back to playing just as soon as I had finished eating. Could we, somehow, play with it together?”

That was something the squirrel could not understand. “Play with it?” he asked.

“Yes, play with it, you can roll it around just so. Give it here and I will show you.”   

The squirrel looked at the nut and then at her. He did not want to give it up, but because he was such good friends with the rabbit, he did not want to hurt her feelings.

“Alright, here you are,” he said, handing it over to her with a long look, and a sadsigh.

“Now, just watch me,” said the rabbit. She lifted her paw and pushed it to one side, and then the other. The nut started to roll about like a little ball and soon fell away from its steady to and fro and spun out in front of her.

“Come on, try it, pass it to me.”

“Okay,” said the squirrel and ran back down the fence post and sat opposite his friend. He pushed with his right paw and it rolled towards her. She then caught it and passed it back to him. And soon the two friends were engaged in a fun game of “pass the nut”, sort of like a game of football or soccer played amongst the humans.

The day was bright, domed overhead with a forever-blue sky and broken up here and there with a smattering of white and grey fluffy clouds. The Sangre de Cristo mountains, with its arched back like that of a great stone dragon, receded into the distance, speckled with the dark green of late summertime. Shadows hung over the dusty flat mesas giving the appearance of vanilla and chocolate calico cakes with a frosting of green shrubs and trees up and down their sides.

Swallows glided blissfully around as light breezes whirled through the cottonwoods and the aspens, full of life. The happy birds sang out the song of the day slowly turning to night, with that last bit of energy to propel them in circles around each other and back up into the sky above, flitting this way and that. They were egging each other on and screaming for the sheer joy of living. “Weeee!” “This is fun!” “Fly higher, higher, higher!”

Past the wooden gate, nearby where the rabbit and the squirrel played at nut ball, a garden was full of the scent of fresh lavender and rosemary. The gravelly pathway snaked itself around the garden with its shrubs and black metal stakes towering upwards, hooked with either pots of vibrant fuchsia, bright colorful bird houses, or strung with red translucent bird feeders full of seeds while others carried honey-sweet nectar.

A hummingbird darted around the garden and discovered that one nectar holder was unoccupied. He looked about, and since he could not see any of his numerous brothers and sisters, sped towards the feeder like an arrow to its mark. The hummingbird perched on one of the green plastic ledges and sunk his long beak into one of the open containers to suck down a delicious draught of the nectar.

“So yummy!” he said, opening his beak and shutting it again, as some of the nectar had dripped down to the feathers on his breast. “I hope mom won’t kill me for this, I do not want to get another scolding for dirtying up my front again! She will be downright vexed!” He quickly slurped up more of the nectar until he was full. Then he pushed himself off of the ledge backwards as his wings sped faster than a propeller flying about, over the feeder, under the pots, to either side, and took off to another section of the garden where bunches of purple and white flowers bloomed.

As he floated over everything, he saw the rabbit and squirrel at play and chuckled to himself. “My that looks like fun, but I shan’t try it. They look so engaged and the nut is so big that I should not be able to push it even if I flutter my wings as fast as they could go. I much rather fly about to discover more that there is to see before the sun sets.” And off the hummingbird went on his way to see other gardens and yards full of bright sunflowers that stood proud at the top of their giant stems and the last bushes of roses slowly fading away into nothing.

The end of summer was nigh and it was a pleasure for all of the animals to enjoy the warm sunshine and fresh air of Santa Fe before autumn set in with its cool breezes and ever-changing landscape of multi-colored leaves falling into the dust. The hummingbird knew it, the swallows were attentive to it, and the rabbit and the squirrel had a sense of it. The glorious days of light and warmth would soon be at an end and all they would have left were the memories of sweet dandelion wine, winds swirling about them, and the precious gift of friendship shared on a golden summer afternoon.