Twilight on the creekbank in the Ozarks

A giggling babble of water tumbles over the rock shelf in the creek bed and an occasional "jumper" slaps the water as he falls back into the water from leaping after an insect. A blue Heron, motionless, stands sentry in a backwater just upstream, ever vigilant for that last morsel ere darkness encases this vissage. Through the trees and up the hill a mother's call beckons her brood inside for the day and the screen door smacks the door frame with a pop as an early coyote howls in the distance. Bats dart here and there in the twilight taking flying insects in the air. The birds are pretty much settled in for the night. They rustle about in the roosting trees making themselves comfortable and sharing the news of the day in muffled chirpage.

Across the holler a cow from the neighboring farm bellows her complaint. I wonder what they mean when they say that. I don't understand cows at all. Just downstream a doe steps into the edgewater for a drink followed by two more and then another and yet another followed by 3 fawns. They are barely visible in the twilight. The trees go quiet as an owl patrols down the stream bed in one pass. The tree frog chorus gets into full voice and the cicadas play percussion supported by the bass voice of the bullfrog over in the eddy. Ah, it will be another symphonic summer night in the Ozarks. For those not afraid of the dark, it is indeed a wondrous time of day.