Piedmont, early June

 Have you ever seen trumpet vine before the long slender flowers form trumpets? The immature tubes of Campsis radicans are closed at the end, though you can see the seams in the tissue that will open and roll back, forming the trumpet’s bell.

The trumpets were just forming in the vines along the Yellow River the first week of June. I wondered about the weather. We’ve had overnight lows in the 50s — in June — something that’s hard for a Texas native to imagine.

At Arabia Mountain, the sundrops are out. Oenothera fruticose produces beautiful yellow flowers. The yellow is muted — almost as soft as the yellow of a buttercup, but not quite.

Every time I pass a neighbor’s big oak, I count the squirrels below. I usually see at least four and have seen six. I was puzzled one day when the yard was empty.

But around the bend, a perched on a power line, was a Cooper’s hawk.