In early summer...

Photo courtesy of PublicDomainPictures.net

An excerpt:

     In early summer the trees stood still under the blue sky, held their limbs outstretched and received the direct rays of the sun.  On the shrubs and bushes in the undergrowth, the flowers unfolded their red, white, and yellow stars.  On some the seed pods had begun to appear again.  They perched innumerable on the fine tips of the branches, tender and firm and resolute, and seemed like small, clenched fists.  Out of the earth came whole troops of flowers, like motley stars, so that the soil of the twilit forest floor shone with a silent, ardent, colorful gladness.  Everything smelled of fresh leaves, of blossoms, of moist clods and green wood.  When morning broke, or when the sun went down, the whole woods resounded with a thousand voices, and from morning till night, the bees hummed, the wasps droned, and filled the fragrant stillness with their murmur.

~ from Bambi, 

written by Felix Salten

As the daughter of a forestry professor, I've spent a lot of time in the woods over the years.  I appreciate how, in just one paragraph, Salten describes the sights, sounds, and smells of the forest in early summer so well that I feel like I'm standing there, experiencing it all in person.

(Psst... if you haven't read about the Big Blue Birthday Contest yet, please check out this post.)