Summer timed ill...

...this year. And last year, come to that.

It feels like Sunday. No cars whoosh down the road. The birds are on duty and the squirrels are playing tag up and down the trees, but people are scarce this morning.

Today and tomorrow are all that remain of the first half of the year and summer begins on Wednesday. It doesn't feel like summer. It feels more like spring, except there are no pastel flowering buds on the trees or bright tulips and crocuses cupping the sun. The green is darkening and the blush of returning warmth has reached its full potential. The Farmer's Market begins a week from Saturday and I will be out of town. Summer is here, but has timed it's arrival ill this year.

I'm still getting used to the weather on this side of the Continental Divide. Last year was rainy and cold and summer peeked in for two weeks and then disappeared in a flurry of white and more rain. There hasn't been much rain on this side of the mountains, but it is cooler than I expected from my trips here earlier in the year. That's a fascinating thing and I do love cool weather, but it's not what I expected.

The thing is, not much is what I expected most of the time. I'm still laboring under the old Chinese curse of living in interesting times. My times have been very interesting. People are coming and going in my life, which is par for the course, and life still astounds me. I'm glad I can still be astounded.

No need to shake up the ant farm when the ants have scattered and only return on occasion to borrow grains of sand and dirt or food fallen unnoticed. It's enough to see them when they crawl by, pick up a load and had back into the world, a moving speck in the corner of my eye that catches my attention for a moment and reminds me that the world keeps spinning and everything is as it should be...even when summer -- and life -- are ill timed.