“The earth is the very quintessence of the human condition.”
(Hannah Arendt)

 

Based on the few times I was able to recognize we were actually in it, this has been quite a nice summer.  A few typical spates of breathlessly hot (read:  Michigan humid) weather, but for the most part just pretty darned nice temperatures with just enough rain to keep things far more green than is usually seen by now. 

Though officially in the middle of summer, yesterday the temperatures dropped significantly.  It often does this here in August, a signal to both flora and fauna that the time of harvest and winter preparations are not far off, and it always knocks me over.  Maybe it’s allergies, maybe it’s my immune system succumbing to the accumulated stress, but by the end of yesterday I was pretty miserable and really, really hoping it wasn’t really a virus.

I slept as long as I could and awoke feeling much better.  And to my surprise it was a beautiful morning.  Not quite as cool as it has been by the time I headed out to the backyard; a stiff breeze was gusting through as it moved mountains of cottonball clouds overhead and I positively basked in the heat of the sun. 

The grey squirrels, children of those released here last year who took up residence in our trees and in the trees of the nearby yards, all showed up in a hungry horde, accompanied by the pine squirrels and two chipmunks.   Every pigeon and English sparrow in the neighborhood seemed to have made reservations at the bird feeder for the same time; so many that some of the pigeons decided it would be easier to wander over to the squirrel’s feeder and we had to chase them off several times.  The starlings are coming back; fledglings with their feather coats-of-many-colors sparkled in the sunlight.

 

To sit out back and watch the comings and goings and antics of everyone is such a delightful thing to me.  No guilt dares whisper on a Saturday morning; work becomes but a memory and I indulge my camera with frame after frame of everything from furball to flower.

 

I’m glad we took the time.  The blessed, soaking rains moved in late this afternoon and the steady drumming through the open windows is a comforting sound.  I look outside and see the silvery sheets washing away the dust and as a shaft of sunlight breaks through the clouds, everything shines pristinely.

I smile,  knowing that later will come one of my favorite photographic subjects:  “wet things”.