Summer is Here

As surely as the summer solstice arrives, our breeze shifts to the South, the clouds put on a disappearing act and our temperatures slowly inch up the scale. After a comfortable spring, with temps in the 80’s and 90’s, we’re now seeing high 90’s and today it flirted with 100. That will likely be the story for the next couple of months.

After driving the convertible down to have morning coffee with the old guys at Pop’s, I managed to finish cutting the lawn before it got too hot. My new riding mower sure makes life easier than walking behind the old mower.

So far, I’ve not seen a single snake in our little development, but yesterday I found a long, thin skin that a night visitor sloughed off in the woodpile. The shape told me it didn’t belong to any poisonous species, and I’m glad of that. I think it was either a rat snake or a black snake. Whatever it is, I hope it stays away from our nesting birds.

Speaking of birds. This evening, I was sitting on the patio and a male hummer decided to check out the flowers and me. He hovered about 3 feet from my face for several seconds before flying over to the windowsill to check out the anole that was strutting. Every time the anole would do his pushups and display his red throat, the hummer would move closer...and closer he got, the more the anole pumped and displayed. The hummer certainly wasn't scared, as he got within a foot of the little lizard.

Lots of other summer things making themselves known. Last night, I saw a firefly in the back yard, and two Whip-poor-wills were calling to each other from across the road. Almost any time of night you can hear the coyotes yapping, and sometimes the beautiful wolf-dog hybrid that lives down the road will join in with a howl that puts the coyotes to shame.