It's muggy outside, like a Midwestern evening. Were the sky clear, the sun would be blasting through the west-facing windows, but instead, thin grey clouds obscure the hot rays, dissipating them across the dispersed water droplets and thickening the air. A tree somewhere is blooming and the sweet fragrance permeates every inch of space, except for under the ponderosas, where the piney sap and dry needles keep things fresh. Small birds hide in the trees, tweet-tweeting and chirp-chirping messages about who has the most colorful feathers, where the tastiest food is, and in the case of the mourning doves, who has just died the saddest death. The mourning doves are pretty birds, and they often visit in pairs, but they really do emanate an air of sadness. What if their call were not so morose? If they tweeted like robins or cooed like their pigeon cousins, would they seem like better party guests? Our pregnant squirrely friend chatters at us from the tree above, daring Dear Kitty to come and get her, or maybe inviting us up for a snack. Dear Kitty prefers to lie in the grass, growing less scared each day of the noisy world.
This here is the default setting. The place to go when nothing else nearby seems satisfactory and everything else is too far away. The groaning lawn mowers and shuddering air conditioners are drowned out by the backyard cacophony. One tree is growing fuzzy fruit the size of cherries, but cherries aren't fuzzy, so perhaps they will be peaches or apricots instead. A self-sufficient yard that feeds all of the senses, with plenty left over to share. This is why people move to places like this. When they purchase a house or pay to rent it, they are getting more than brick and mortar, more than central AC, more than good schools in the district. They are getting a symphony that never ends, pesticide-free fruit at 2am, and friendly neighbors who live in the trees and provide constant entertainment, unobtrusive company, and plenty of gossip about whose nest is positively impeccable and who let that riffraff redbreast show his face in these these parts. When you put it that way, we're getting a real bargain. Don't tell the landlord what this place is really worth. I'd be out on the street in no time.
