goddessing

Summer showed up early around here, just in time for Memorial Day weekend. Temperatures were in the high 80s for three days, once even breaking the 90 degree barrier. The sun was out and proud, and the lake was awake with human activity and every boat imaginable. The water is still a bit cold for comfort, but there were a few cold-hardy skiiers and lots of big durable air mattresses full of children trailing the backs of fast boats.

The poppies, which usually don't bloom until early June, are already spent. Thirteen crimson-and-black blooms this year!

Before the heat, we had three gorgeous weeks of cool weather and copious rain. Brilliant orange-and-black Baltimore Orioles and bright-red Northern Cardinals flying to and from our feeders made for some bright colors near the house, but the colors of the lake were the real beauty. With the growing greens sometimes soft, sometimes vivid, the colors of water and sky at dusk were like a display of every hue of blue, each night a different color. One particular evening is etched in my brain. After a long dark day of rain, the clouds over the lake were penetrated by light from somewhere above them, and their reflection in the darkening sapphire waters was an ice blue, colors sparkling more brilliantly than any diamond.

I knew by the colors of each evening's hour blue that Venus as evening star was among us again, and today confirmed that fact:


Today, the weekenders are back wherever they spend most of their lives, the lake is quiet, the sky overcast, and the trees are dancing in a changeable wind. At mid-morning it's dark outside. The heavens are opening as I write, and a heavy rain is falling. According to the experts we'll have at least two days of rain, and cooler temperatures for the rest of the week. With any luck, the hour blue will be vivid again in this cool wet world that holds off the full onset of summer, at least for a few more days.

Love's Illusions