I love watching hummingbirds in the early morning. Millions of them swarming around newly-filled feeders. Well, maybe not millions, but certainly a swarm. Maybe 15 to 26 making a pitstop at my little Hummingbird Buc-ee’s before continuing on their yearly migration to the Gulf of Mexico and then to all points south.
Mexico City. An unbelievable 63 degrees this morning. If I was a hummingbird, I’d pack my bags just at the thought of drinking my fill of fruity agua fresca and feeling a cool breeze under my wings.
The cats on the porch don’t seem to mind the visitors. Hummingbirds are a quick snack they know they’ll never catch. But they are watching intently the blue jays and cardinals over at their bird feeder (an old tree stump standing in the front yard with a wooden platform sprinkled with bird seed). I imagine the cats are wondering if they should go on safari before it gets too hot.
A fox walks through the front yard looking for any missed table scraps from the night before. Cabbage chunks, potato peelings, fruit rinds. Anything will do. But the midnight shift was thorough, eating everything off their plates, leaving in their wake just a pile of dirty dishes.
The cats decide to hold off on their safari. Maybe it won’t be so hot this afternoon. Or maybe tomorrow.
How about this weather? One day it’s hot. The next day is even hotter. And then the next day might not be as hot, but it feels like it is because the wind isn’t blowing and that high pressure dome is parked right on top of us, feeling like a prison sentence with no chance of parole.
I check the weather every morning hoping today will be the day we’ll drop into the 60s. But it isn’t. Will it rain today? Probably not. Humid and 100? More than likely. Should we expect more of the same until Christmas? I wouldn’t be surprised, but we have no business complaining.
I remember the summers of 2011 and 12 (this is Old Man Me talking) just like they were yesterday. Weeks and weeks of more than 100-degree days; rain so scarce and the lakes so low that the neighbors were mowing the grass under their boat docks; suffering through two weeks of no AC because we were having a new unit installed which, we found out, takes more time to do than just having something patched; and me daydreaming about vacationing in upstate New York and enjoying the cool northern breeze as it comes off of Lake Ontario.
As I was standing at the kitchen sink, thinking of the past and future while washing dirty bowls and watching our wild kingdom in full display, a Sikorsky S-61 Sea King helicopter with a water bucket dangling below it passed over our house. It scooped up some Lake Bob Sandlin water then headed east, no doubt looking to assist in one of the hundreds of wildfires that Mother Nature needs help in fighting.
Mr. Fred Rogers: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”
We had some rain yesterday. I watched dark clouds heading our direction from the north. I sat out on the front steps hoping to feel the rain on my face. One drop hit my nose, then the sun came out. More than likely there was a good drenching somewhere, just not here. But I have no doubt cooler weather and good amounts of rain are coming. Just in their own time. We only need to be patient.
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