Wednesday Morning Comin' Down

It's 68 degrees and overcast. From the cabin windows it looks like a wintry morning but it's not, of course; it's still August. There's no wind, no birds singing and flying around; the air is heavy.

(The photos in this post are from earlier this year and last year. I didn't have my camera out this morning.)

There's one little fawn staring at me from the longhorns' pen. She's been here since her birth so she's familiar with seeing me. But still, the deer never trust us completely. Our area is very rural with few people so the deer don't eat out of our hands like some places. They retain their wildness even though throughout the years my neighbors and I always have "pets" among them, those deer that tolerate our presence a little easier and show a little less fear of us. We often name those ones, sometimes unimaginative names, like "yard deer", and sometimes, as my neighbor did, after a grandchild, and sometimes after Texas characters, like the orphan twin bucks we called Waylon and Willie.

I need to go get a haircut today but hate to leave when there is any chance, however slight, that it might rain. Not because I don't want to drive in the rain but because rain is an event to be celebrated and enjoyed around here. I like to see the ground soaking it up and the trees dripping with water.

I should have gone yesterday but couldn't muster up the energy; sinus headache problems had me dragging. What with the dust from Africa and the smoke from Idaho all blowing in the last couple of weeks, it's causing allergy problems. It really is a small, small world.

I've taken my coffee and iPad to the front porch. The birds are waking up. There's a hummer on the last salvia greggii that is blooming now, the one on the porch right by my feet. She spies the red cover on my iPad and comes over to hover in front of me. 

The little cottontail that lives here has moved into the grass in the center of the driveway. I almost stepped on him the other morning. He was eating some birdseed that fell from the feeder in front of the pump house as I walked by. He was born here in the yard; I first saw him as a tiny thing hiding in the giant rosemary bush by the cabin. He's always out and about in the early morning.

The white-winged doves are following him across the grass eating whatever it is they are finding on the ground. I count 13 as I sit here. There's a little cardinal eating buds on the cenizo. I hear a raven squawking from the neighbor's direction.

Out in the pasture by the deer feeder there's a jackrabbit and there's one in the boys' pen. A couple of does came in there to eat any alfalfa Woodrow and Gus have dropped. They don't like me sitting here though, so they move on. Sometimes I wonder why they never accept me like they do the longhorns and turkeys but I guess their survival depends on staying leary. I also wonder if they know I am the provider of the alfalfa they're eating!

It's peaceful out here in the mornings. No sounds but the soft ones of animals waking up and getting on with their day. No vehicle noises, no television, no human voices, the AC isn't running, just the quiet sounds of the natural world.

The promise of the seasons changing, one of the best times of the year. No matter what season it is we are always glad toward the end that a change is coming. We've either been too hot or too cold for too long and look forward to something different. Right now I'm thinking about the crisp cool days of Fall, soups and chili, pumpkins on the porch, scarecrows in the garden. Sitting on the porch with a warm throw in my lap and some Bailey's in my coffee.

Life is good. I hope it's good wherever you are this morning too.