The Slow Hours

The east is cloudy today, but the clouds don't look very wet. It could change, but I'm still not expecting it to rain. The clouds have been expanding in this direction, but the sun has thus far stayed ahead of them since emerging from the mass about eight o'clock. It is less ungodly hot than it was yesterday at this time, and there has been a nice breeze blowing most of the morning. Hypnotic shards of light flicker across the rustling leaves of the oaks and the walnut tree. I now suspect that the day will turn out to be survivable, though the air conditioner might have to be turned on by late afternoon.

In the meantime it's still not too bad outdoors, as long as I don't get active, so I've been sitting on the shady porch watching a feral cat nap. That's about as active as I'm likely to get today. It might be nice to have something a bit livelier to watch, but the neighborhood is oddly free of birds today and I haven't seen a squirrel in hours. It's pretty quiet with the school up the way closed for the summer, and nothing goes on in the former apple orchard down the block now that most of the trees have been removed.

Unless those clouds can muster up a storm it's probably going to be pretty placid around for the rest of the day. More likely than not I'll end up watching television and probably falling asleep in front of it. As there's nothing urgently needing doing, I won't mind, as long as I wake up in time to fix dinner at a reasonable hour.

Niceness

It was not necessary to turn on the air conditioner this evening after all. It has cooled of quite nicely outside, even before the sun went down, and the fan alone should get the house comfortable within a couple of hours. With all the windows open I can even hear the crickets, though not when I'm sitting at the noisy computer, nor when I have the television on. I can hear them better outside, though, so that's where I'm going for a couple of hours, until the house gets cooler. It should be comfortable enough by eleven o'clock.

Rain never came today, and as most of the clouds have vanished now it probably won't, so I watered the rose bushes and a few other plants that are drought sensitive. The ground releases a very strong earthy scent when it gets wet after a long time being dry. I like it. Maybe it's lingering now. I'm going out to sniff.