Sounds of summer

May is like summer - warm days with a light breeze, hot sunshine and lots of flowers, bugs, birds and life. The veggie patch is bursting with greenery - the tomatoes are forming, blossoms abound, the cucumbers are climbing and the pumpkins are creeping across the fields. Enormous carp, washed in from the lakes and rivers as the irrigation gates opened, gulp noisily at whatever flies over the canals. The water fowl - our herons and white egrets, along with some black noisy ducks - are enjoying the abundance of newly hatched frogs and other creatures that live along the banks of the canals. Early in the morning it is a symphony of life - gulp, squack, croak, tweet, gulp, wonk, tweet tweet. Mid-day there is more of a buzz from the insects and my continual slapping at them, which really doesn't make any difference in the insect population but does give me some satisfaction. The evening combines the buzz of insects with the cacophony of wildlife and birds. To stand in the middle of the field and listen to the sounds is like being a conductor of a grand orchestra - nothing beats life in the countryside.