Magic, Magic Everywhere

It's that magical moment when it's dark but not night. Or is it night but not dark? When there is still enough light to provide shadows but when the hawk flies from the oak tree to the Bradford Pear, he is undefined, a Neil Gaiman story with edges blurred and a message sharp as talons.
The owls are doing that hoot-pant thing and the crickets are tuning up but the frogs have not started playing their concert for the night.

I just went out and checked on the chickens. They've put themselves to bed, roosting not on the roosts that Mr. Moon has built, but on the two-by-fours helping to hold up the walls. They seemed contented. I filled up their water and turned on their classical music station and bid them good-night, wishing that all babies were so easy to tuck in bed.



Kathleen and Herb were just here. They came bearing olives and feta cheese and vodka and promises of more chickens coming tomorrow.
Well.
With friends like that, who needs to leave the property?
We took the yard tour and visited the chickens. Since Herb and Kathleen have the siblings of my chickens and they love them as much as I love mine, it was so gratifying. None of this, "Oh yeah, those chickens are...really neat," stuff. We discussed leg feathers and combs and personalities and sizes and they know all my chickens by name. And then we looked at the plants and the garden and they oohed and awed over the butternut squash, the tomatoes.
It was glorious.
Now they're gone and Mr. Moon is in town playing cards with the boys and I'm here alone and it's so calm.
It's cool because it rained today and the house is open, doors and windows. and I'm not sweating. I went out back and took a picture of the house from the back with the strings of lights on because I wanted to show the magic.
The magic.
I live in the magic.
When Herb and Kathleen were leaving, I told Herb, "You know this woman saved my life last summer?"
And he said, "Yeah, I do."
And she said, "That's what friends do."
I said, "But I couldn't ask. She just did it."
He nodded because what more is there to say than that? He's in love. And damn. He should be.
The frog just started up.
He starts slowly, like a guy sitting down at the bar and ordering his first drink of the evening, lighting a cigarette and looking around.
Pretty soon the lady frog will answer, lowering her mascared eyed-lashes.

This is my life.
How can this be?
This is my life.