The Corner

I can't keep up.  It's mid July and there are a couple of months of summer yet, but we seem to have turned some sort of seasonal corner without my even seeing it coming.  Almost six-thirty and the sun has barely crested the hills.  Last week I was putting the critters to bed at nine; last night it was dark at eight-thirty.  At this rate, I'd better locate the Christmas ornaments soon.

I seem to be awash in nostalgia these days.  Tom, a milk customer, stopped by yesterday and, don't ask me how, we got on the subject of sparklers.  Tom spent years of his childhood in Germany (a military father).  While they didn't celebrate the Fourth of July there, they did have sparklers.  We agreed that the old ones were the best, the real ones on a wire that lasted long enough to write your name in the dark.  The new ones are a pale excuse and go phhht before you could write your initials.  Yes, they are undoubtedly safer, but not nearly as much fun.  That led us to other things we used to do and have that are now verboten by the government for our own good.  How did we ever survive?

It wasn't as hot yesterday, but just the one day without watering and the deck plants wilted.  The delta breezes that we all wait for, hope and pray for, during a heat wave kicked in in the afternoon and I made some progress in my preparations.  It takes a while for those cooling winds to work their way from the coast across the valley to the hills.

Another sign that we're headed toward fall is the appearance of the dragonflies.  The other day I saw one; yesterday a full squadron was patrolling the fields.  How time flies when you're having fun.