Sun, Rain, Wind

Summer, people despair, is not destined to court us this year, in this geography within Canada. The promise of summer has become an elusive ideal, teasing us with its potential, with its never-failing presence, year after year. This year posing the hypothesis that nature is tired of our demands and is prepared to rest on her laurels after presenting us with an unusual spring. One can empathize with her, since we're never quite satisfied nor satiated with her attempts to mollify our disgust with her extremes.

We're not given a smooth ride on the season's coursing toward what might eventually become summer. Experiencing too-hot, too sunny, too dry and too windy days, complaining endlessly at the discomfort. Then looking back with longing at what we disdained when we're mired in endless rainy, windy days, with little sun and far too cool temperatures. Where's the moderation? Is the medium always the message? Why not the median?

The birds don't seem to care much. Cardinals were lofting their sweet songs as we slushed through the ravine on muddy trails, today. There were robins, and crows and chickadees and a fly-catcher, all busy doing what birds are wont to do. And the squirrels and chipmunks hardly seemed to care, bustling about on their springtime activities, preparing for - summer. Let's hope they're not disappointed.

The garden certainly doesn't seem to care. Everything green is growing apace. It's as though the branches of our fruit trees grow a foot each and every day, reaching to the sky. Buds are forming relentlessly on rose bushes and clematis vines, on lilies and irises, on peonies and Jacob's-ladder, on dahlias and begonias. All those elements of the weather we complain of are their life-force.