High Summer Twilight

Gazing through the dining room windows, I watch the light soften and fade.  The garden is bathed in high summer twilight.  Smoke from summer forest fires fills the valley and intensifies the atmospheric perspective of the scene.  I can just see the hazy outline of the buttes that stand in the distance.  A robin touches down on the grass and the resident birds come home to bed down in the brambles.  There are hundreds of them. The day has been another hot one in a lengthening string of 100+ degree days.  With the sun finally down, the wildlife and the human life are all grateful for a reprieve.  Our neighbors' white cat sits on top of our white fence licking her paws and staring over into the tall grass along the ditch.  Mouse or gopher, I wonder. Whatever it is, I’m grateful for the band of neighborhood cats that patrol the area.

I mowed the orchard meadow today.  It looks crisper, cleaner and free of the dried-out light brown shag that tall grass has at this point in summer.  The garden and the house are quiet and still, except for the sound of Daisy our gentle, loyal and affectionate English Setter briefly circling her bed to settle in for the night.  Was there ever a better dog? She is fourteen and showing some of the inevitable signs of aging, but still spry enough to charge out into the yard and garden following her nose. Twilight faded into dusk, now dusk has faded into dark and this little part of the world settles in for a peaceful respite from the heat of the day.

Weedy Pete