This morning I swam especially hard, not for a long time just the usual and just very vigorously. I felt it this afternoon and could not have stayed awake if my life depended upon it.

The day today is perfect. The temperature is not too hot. It is not too humid. The sky is a clear, bright blue. It is the perfect afternoon to spend on the patio in the shade with a glass of lemonade or iced tea. It is the kind of day you feel fortunate to experience.

Maybe the hummingbirds are coming to our garden just not to our feeder for them. I watched a tiny hummingbird perch on the fence that surrounds our vegetable garden. It visited the tomato blossoms. I think that next year I should concentrate on adding perennials that hummingbirds like.

When I was growing up in the city here, the only wildlife I saw were sparrows, pigeons, robins, grackles, starlings, squirrels, and the occasional chipmunk. Since I was a child, I think that collectively we have become smarter about the importance of preserving wetlands and other natural habitats. To be honest about it though, when I was growing up the land where we are currently living was a meadow. There was little more here than a few farms. This was way out in the country. It was not too long ago that the meadow behind our home would have been filled in and built up with homes or roadways or at the very least mowed and groomed to be a lawn. What we call the swamp that is to the south of where we live would have been drained and built up. Because we do make these attempts at preservation as small as they are, we are encouraging this more diverse wildlife that we are enjoying. At the same time as our urban development moves out and we build up the area, we are squeezing the wildlife. We reduce their natural habitat and we tend to forget that the wildlife was here before we were. They have no place to go so they frequently get into trouble because for a lot of people they are unwelcome.

So far I have not been able to find the picture of the buck but will continue searching.