Summer's almost gone

With the advent of my birthday comes a bittersweet time for me. It means summer’s on the wane.

On the one hand it means my favorite time of year is at hand:  autumn. It’s cooler than summer, warmer than winter, and less ridiculously windy than spring. it’s perhaps the most beautiful time of year in New Mexico. Plus autumn segues straightaway into the holiday season, which I also love.

But I still feel pangs of what the end of summer used to mean, long ago though it was: when I’d be sentenced to school again, for the crime of being a kid. It was hard, facing that.

Beyond the unpleasant memories … things start to die, this time of year. The trees will explode into glorious color, only to fade to brown and grey and then bare branches. The ditches will be drained. It’ll be trickier walking Emma Dog because it’ll be harder finding places she can drink, unless I can at last persuade her to drink from a little bowl or saucer I can tote along in my water carrier.

Still, still … it’s my favorite time of year.

In a few days, if things follow their customary course, the signs of the season-shift will start to manifest. Mornings and evenings will be touched with cool. The quality of light will change, as will the feel of the air – the texture as well as the temperature. Summer’s sharp edges will begin to round. Around the first day of September, autumn will unmistakably have arrived.

The air will smell subtly different then. That’s leaving aside one of my favorite harbingers of fall, the smell of roasting green chiles. And well before it gets cool enough for piñon smoke from fireplaces.

One of the pleasures autumn brings is the bird migrations – a lot of species pass through here, following the Rio Grande.

Meanwhile, yesterday when Emma and I were walking the ditch east of the Rio Grande Nature Center, there were a bunch of swallows sitting on the phone wires. Most of them weren’t my favorites, Barn Swallows, which are colorful and have the long distinctive swallow tails. These were mostly short-tailed kinds, pretty much dark brown and white. I’m guessing Bank Swallows or Northern Rough-winged Swallows, or a mixture – I don’t know enough to tell them apart.

I tried taking pictures of them. That didn’t work out too well; I need a better camera for that sort of thing. They came out looking like knots in black thread.

What I really wish I could have gotten pictures, or better video, of was them doing these screaming Death Star trench runs (Almost there! Al-most-there!) down the ditch, between the banks and skimming a foot or so above the water.

Ah, well. Not getting near as much done as I want and need to do. Though it hasn’t been a hot summer the heat’s gotten oppressive. I haven’t been sleeping any too well of late.

Need to let go of this day, and take a run at the next.

Update - whew! Upgraded both WordPress and my Atahualpa theme to the latest releases. Everything seems squared-away.

If you get hitches in your gitalong, please let me know. Gods know if I’ll be able to do anything about them. But I should, like, know. Because.

Popularity: 4% [?]