After the rains

After enduring my goings on throughout June about our endlessly wet weather that month, today you get the Erie Weather Report for mid-July and if you're a weather geek, as I admit I am, you've seen the weather channel's announcement of a heat wave in the northeast.

Yes, they are correct. There is such and we have a piece of it. The average high for this week in Erie is 80--all week. And what have we had this week? Sunday 86; Monday 85; Tuesday 87; Wednesday 89.....and what is predicted? Thursday 86, Friday 86, Saturday 83.

And the folks out in the sun are baking: the parents of our East Coast migrant children in the fields, the workmen/women on the highways and in the gardens and on the houses because the outdoor work that would have been done in June has all been pushed into July. One landscaping business owner told us that they are 3-4 weeks behind their schedule and working 7 days a week to try and get all their customers' work in. WOW--it is hot and humid!

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Switching gears now: there are a lot of lovely meditations and reflections on the beauty of the everyday. I read one recently about looking, really looking anew at your daily commute, be it short or long. Try to see things that you just pass by without really taking note, the author challenged. There is a lot of everyday beauty and wonder that we overlook be it in haste or lack of attention, whatever. So I'm trying it and look at what I found this past week.

Around our neighborhood there are still a number of open drainage ditches that have not been piped in yet. They are along the roads and in front of houses. Right down East Lake Road this is what has developed in one long ditch: wildflowers--and they are all out right now and are beautiful.....in a ditch, alongside busy Rte 5. So I pulled over one day, grabbed my camera and tried to capture the wonder. It's not quite the same as the view from the car, but it's close.