8-16-1955 Compliments of Hurricane Connie

We arrived out here Saturday night in the last fine drizzle of a day of steady rain, compliments of Hurricane Connie. We unpacked, settled ourselves, received a few last instructions and went off to bed - the air coming through the open windows was damp and chilly & getting into bed under cool sheets & a blanket smelling of a cedar chest was very pleasant - the odor reminded me of something good and warm & friendly - the nights since have been warmer & we haven't needed the blanket, but the mornings are cool and everything outdoors is heavily dewed.

It warms up well by noon & the sun is hot & direct & the insects swarming - the only flaw in the whole experience. They buzz and hum & swoosh about my head but fortunately do no more harm - no mosquitos to bite. The dogs are finding comfort in the shade of the young maple on the lawn near me. My surroundings are beautiful & all but soundless. I looked out across the valley at the opposite hill & felt awed by its beauty but on thinking just what was beautiful about it, I could say no more than trees & sunshine and shadows & what is so beautiful about only these things? Only that I love them & love makes beautiful. And there is beauty in the clean, even unbroken (save for one treetop) line of the ridge of yonder hill, in the space of a field between two woods - it is smooth & fresh green & might be the edge of the world.

This morning while I sat on the porch, reading, I heard some chickens, might have been the hens in the barn, cackle & chatter as if in alarm - it would seem that it was a warning call of some kind for I noticed the mother hen, loose in the yard with her chick, had ruffled her wings & feathers and squatted down right where she was while the tiny chick nestled close to her under the feathers with only its head exposed.

Yesterday while filling a bucket from the shallower pool in the spring house, I saw, with mild horror & surprise, two pincers rise from the settled mud at the bottom - was a crawfish I had disturbed which commenced to crawl awkwardly through the tiny spillway into the deeper portion of water.

Another curious thing, indigenous I suppose to such situations as this, is the clarity of sounds issuing from across the valley - sounds of people, animals & machinery carry with a loudness belying their distance - almost with a sound of mechanical amplification.