The first day, the first two chicks were virtually motionless and shiny-hairless. No longer fearful of shooing the mother phoebe from her nest with our motion within the cabin, we now are openly snooping outdoors at nose level at the cramped nest, crammed with new life, while mama is away seeking food. After the first couple of days, the chicks begin developing the foundation for feathers; they are now covered with fine, widely-spaced hair. After four days they assume the classic chick-in-the-nest position: heads up and pointing out of the nest, with mouths opened wide in the hopes that mama will soon be back with a bite to eat. At night, mama continues to sit on them; I should think she would smother her babies, with her relatively much heavier body, but no. They thrive.

I am not in the habit of sticking my nose into a nest of new-born chicks; but the opportunity provides exciting entertainment, as the chicks grow from naked, motionless masses to birdlets which will, in the not too distant future, take wing and lead their bird lives away from our prying eyes. Off they will go before the snow flies and hopefully some will survive the rigors of self-propelled travel to return and begin the life cycle anew; it's a comforting thought.

Birds pleasantly take up much of our free time early this month. All four of the hummingbird children have now eagerly joined their parents at our pink feeder, at the other set of front windows. The six calorie-chugging hummingbirds suck up so much sugar water we imagine we can see the line of water drop; not true, but from now until the six begin their trip south, across the Gulf of Mexico to the Yucatan Peninsula, Costa Rica, or wherever they intend to winter (I haven't asked and they haven't volunteered), Jeanne will bring to a boil three cups of water and a cup of sugar and fill the feeder, repeating the cycle each two to three days.

Here we are virtually inundated with tiny birds, which we can leisurely study, nose-to-nose: nature in the wilds of Jewell Hollow.

Bird sagas continue: while driving up the state road last week, at the lower end of our property line, we slowly drove around a slight curve and there, walking just as casually as prowling teenagers on a Saturday night, were two wild turkeys walking up the road. I would venture that not 1000th of one percent of persons on this planet have ever seen a wild turkey in the flesh, or to be more accurate, the feathers. They are very skittish critters. Wild turkeys are hunted in Jewell Hollow. You never simply come upon a wild turkey and shoot it; you have to sit by the hour and call one to you, after the roost (or family) has broken up in the morning to prowl and forage for food. Our wild turkeys encountered were smaller and much blacker than the hybrid Thanksgiving dinner types that most folks meet.

Wild turkeys fly, though clearly not as far as Costa Rica. These birds were out for a stroll up the road and had no intention to scurry or fly away; they continued their casual walk, into the forest, as we, each a little amazed, continued our drive to the cabin.

Driving and wild life in the Hollow, and over the Blue Ridge Mountains behind us, present potential perils. We believe that the reason deer regularly graze at the side of the highway is that the space the highway has slashed through the mountain provides much more sunlight, and, therefore, more edible green grazing than the thick-tree umbrella of the inner forest; regardless, we seldom leave the mountain or return to it without encountering four or five deer crossing the highway or grazing beside it. We have quietly, but reluctantly, concluded that it is inevitable that one day one of us will hit a deer while driving a car. I have put deer-hitting in the category with death and taxes.

Last evening, as we returned from enjoying dinner and fellowship with old, old friends, Dicky and Glo, from our District of Columbia residential days, we counted four deer moving or grazing at the highway edge on only the eastern slope of the mountain. With our continuing high level of traversing the Blue Ridge, a painful collision is inevitable.

The weather today is sublime: extremely bright, cool and dry, a perfect day to enjoy each other, our dogs, and of course, our growing family of summer-tourist birds. After the days-upon-endless-days of rain in June, all foliage is green and perky. The wild tiger lilies add splashes of bright orange and gold around the pond and in the back of the cabin over the septic tank. You know God is in his heaven on a day like today. A former colleague died too young of cancer Friday, but that also is part of the cycle of life. We will all pass, Jeanne and I, the dogs, and the new birds, and old, but Jewell Hollow will remain for the next cycle of life; that also is a comforting thought.

Wednesday
The firewood sawing, splitting, and stacking season has finally begun. The delay was caused by a comic series of errors at the tractor sales agency, where I have previously taken my chain saw for repair; no more. It took a month to get the saw back in operation; finally it is back in Jewell Hollow and in use.

The first task was sawing up the lengths of pine lying beside the state road. The state road crew members cut it into movable lengths after the top half of the lightning-damaged tree fell across the road in a rain and wind storm. Sawing was relatively easy: the lengths were no longer than six feet and therefore could be rolled after partially sawing them. (You can't complete the log saw in one cut because you will either buckle the log onto the saw blade and chain, causing damage, or saw into rock or earth, without exception dulling the cutting edge.)

The fun, and the physical exercise, is in the splitting. Fun, because I test my ability to bring the wedge-shaped, sledge hammer-like, wooden-handled, tempered iron maul down quickly enough and with enough force to split the piece in two, then in quarters. Each tree is different, by wood grain density and moisture content: the tighter and dryer the grain, the easier to split with the fewest strokes. The roadside pine was so moist sap oozed out after each stroke of the maul.

If a piece of log doesn't pop open after a couple of strokes with the wedge end of the maul, I tap a wedge of steel into it and hammer it with the flat end of the maul until it splits; they always split, even if two wedges must be beaten into them.

I prefer to do all of the heavy splitting in warm weather because I can accomplish the heavy work shirtless. The exertion is so great, and the perspiration so profuse, that all clothing is soon soaked. When splitting wood in late autumn and winter, and the sweat begins to cool, serious chills set in. For me, it is better to split wood in the summer and let the sweat evaporate without the hindrance of shirts, jackets and heavy denim jeans. In the summer, it's shorts, socks and steel-toed work boots.

Jeanne is my stacker, when she is in the hollow. We live by a forest maxim: It's not firewood 'til it's stacked and drying. With Jeanne stacking, I split a few pieces and throw them ahead to her. If she is lucky, there is a standing tree nearby strong enough to build a stack of split wood against; if not, she piles the pieces onto leather wood carriers and carries, a very heavy load in each hand, to the nearest stacking spot in the forest; it's heavy, hard labor, carrying piles of wood over rocks and boulders.

I'm very proud that we have provided all of the firewood for two wood stoves by our own labor during the last four winters, since returning to the hollow from Michigan; all our wood, with the notable exception of over a cord that Charlie deposited on the stone wall in front of the cabin late-winter this year. We will remain with the firewood task as long as body strength remains.

Because of the mild winter and Charlie's efforts on our behalf, we begin this wood splitting and stacking season with a number of hard wood piles thoroughly dry and ready for burning. Ideally, stacked wood should air dry over four months before being tossed into the fireplace or stove. The wood from the pine tree won't be burned until after the first of the year; hardwoods need less time because they don't contain as much sap.

During July and August, a non-rational drive takes me over: I must saw down dead trees and process them into stacks of drying firewood. As the squirrels dashing across our rocky acres and flying through the trees overhead must put away nuts for winter, I must procure our winter heat; it is, I believe, a primordial drive. After the wood is safely stacked and drying, I sometimes walk to the various forest stacks, pat them and smell the wood. It is basic, deep satisfaction knowing -- and feeling -- that we will be warm and secure when the savage blizzard winds blow and that our labors have made it so. Summer wood work will continue until it is absolutely clear that enough drying firewood exists to warm us over the longest and coldest of Virginia winters.

The phoebe chicks are growing at a truly incredible rate: they have gained much weight, relative to their egg-emergence size, are now fully-feathered, and their wings are very evident.

Yesterday Jeanne said: "Wouldn't it be great if we were able to see the chicks leave the nest?" Wouldn't it, indeed, be a thrill to watch these four once-tiny-eggs fly off into the forest.

The six zooming and sugar water-sucking hummingbirds are consuming sweet water at the rate of a cup and a half a day. While relaxing from their quick-flight tricks and supping at the feeder, they sit upon the thinnest of tree branches, lines carrying power to the summerhouse and the flood lights, high on the big hemlock outside the kitchen door. The hummingbird family appears to be having such a joyful summer life in Jewell Hollow.

Sunday
Yesterday I shot and killed a snake. In fact, it was shot twice, with a 16 gauge shotgun.

The dogs were in the summerhouse resisting the 95 degree heat by lounging on the concrete floor. Both dogs began to bark urgently. We were in the cabin reading. I arose from my chair to determine the problem. Attila was at the door crouched, barking at what I thought would be a bug of some sort. As I stood at the cabin kitchen door, I noticed a dark heap at the summerhouse entrance. A coiled snake! A coiled snake, yet, about to enter the summerhouse and take on our very beloved dogs.

A rush to the scene. A four foot long, mostly black, faintly-patterned coiled reptile, ready for battle, was indeed with us. My favorite, but recently broken, staff was on the table next to the Weber grill. I seized it and poked the snake, hoping to divert it from the summerhouse; then, avoiding the strike of the coiled snake, I gaffed the summerhouse door shut with the staff, keeping the dogs out of the snake's reach.

What to do? First, Jeanne came to the scene of the excitement with our only snake book. Was it a rattlesnake or copperhead, clearly poisonous and deadly? Much examination followed. At this point, the snake struck out a full and frightening three feet at one of my staff jabs. No, this snake was not obviously poisonous, but we were, Jeanne and I, involved in art, not science.

Was the snake before us a black snake and clearly benign? No. One fact was certain, this four foot serpent was very aggressive, a threat to dogs and visiting grandchildren, if not the two six foot plus cabinites looking down upon it.

"The locals say 'the only good snake is a dead snake'," said I. "Would you go up and get the shotgun and a couple of shells, while I keep it here?"

Jeanne did as requested. My first thought was: "Do I remember how to load this thing?" The shotgun, a gift to son Geoff from our friend Vance, was an automatic and more complex than the double barrel and pumps of my long-past hunting days.

I had concern for the summerhouse, for the snake would be shot against it. One mistake had already been made: while trying to move it out into the open, it had cleverly slithered behind the unused metal garbage cans which sit in front of the screened-in structure.

One shotgun blast -- Bam! Blood could be seen; regardless, the snake was moving, its head circling up into another coil. The second shotgun blast ended our real or imagined threat. I pitch-forked the corpse over the pond bank.

Jeanne and I finally surmised that the late snake was an Eastern Blue Racer, described in our snake book as very aggressive but not poisonous. The dogs are deeply frightened by the sounds of gun powder explosions in shells being struck by gun hammers; they were wary of me for the greater portion of an hour, though I explained to each that the snake was dispatched to save them.

It was unpleasant shooting the snake; not because it was a snake but because it was defenseless against my weaponry. It did not have a sporting chance, but it had to be done; and it was.

To a more pleasant note: the phoebe chicks have left the nest; we assume carried by the mother to a new home.

Friday evening we arrived home from Washington, DC at eight thirty. I peered into the nest and the four chicks were stuffed therein, now very full-feathered and looking nothing like the naked-scrawnies just emerged from their birth eggs. By the next morning at eight thirty they were gone, the nest empty.

I have inspected the now-empty nest: clean as a whistle, as it were. No unsightly refuse from the chicks' early lives as monstrously-growing new beings. I wish the now-family-of-six health and happiness -- and please return and use your nest next year. We very much enjoyed your show.

The Jewell Hollow wild raspberry season officially opened yesterday: I strode out into the near 100 degree heat and sun to do battle with eight foot boughs of pickers to gather the first red morsels. It was during my battles with the long picker-boughs that I broke my favorite staff. It was my favorite because it was slender, but stout -- tough; it had two small knobs on the high end which served me as a grip. It had been used for so many berry pickings over the last four years that the berry drippings on my right hand had stained the handle a shade near black.

It was while slashing away at the long picker-boughs that it snapped; in spite of the durable, gray duct tape that had been used to carefully reinforce the wood, separating in places for lack of moisture. My favorite staff's last official acts in the line of duty were to control the late snake and protecting our dogs by being the instrument which snagged the summerhouse door shut. R.I.P.

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