Backyard Showers

We’ve been having more rain than usual in the past few days. The local meteorologists keep saying that it came down too fast and too much to do any good, since the ground was already too saturated. Well, where do these dummies think the runoff water goes? It goes into lakes and reservoirs where it will be stored until needed. Then there are the dummies who still think they can drive through water running across the road. We see them all the time, cars or pickups stranded in the rushing water, firemen or policemen having to rescue them before they and their car or pickup go zipping down the waterway. And the temperatures have dropped into the mid-nineties and all our trees and flowers look wonderfully refreshed. I sit on my back patio and admire our soaring arbor vitae trees along the back property line,

our orange and grapefruit trees now dropping last year’s crop for the doves, quail, and grackles to feast on, our neighbor’s violet-flowering bush.

A large yellow butterfly who apparently lives in our arbor vitae keeps flitting back and forth across our yard. She’s not Millie Monarch but she’s the same size. I’ll call her Saffron, or maybe Sunshine. Does she migrate north like the monarchs or does she live out her life here in our backyard? I’d hate to one day find a deceased Saffron or Sunshine lying beneath one of our citrus trees. Our animal friends aren't nearly as numerous as they once were. We're down to only two cottontails who like to cool off by lying in the moist soil under one of our orange trees. We have one cardinal that signals his presence with that unmistakable cardinal whistle. The doves have finally shut off their annoying mating coo-coos, the quail parade through but in far smaller numbers, and the grackles are starting to molt. The grackle has to be one of the ugliest birds in the avian world, and when they molt and lose their tail feathers and most of the feathers around their necks, they look like they should be in hell, cawing and squawking at all the hellish residents. Right now, as I look out the window near my computer, the sun is out, the air is still, the temperature a wonderful 76. And Saffron or Sunshine just did a fly-by. All’s right with the world.