The colors of summer...

As I wander the backroads around my neck of the woods, the rainbow of spring wildflowers has already given way to the reflected sunshine of the summer blooms. As you may have noticed in the photos of the last week, the yellow of the sun has been transplanted to every unmowed field in this part of Texas. We ave yet to see the first of the actual sunflowers of the later summer but everywhere you look you see the yellow of Black-eyed Susan, Tickseed, and Plains Coreopsis make up the majority of the blooms. There is nothing quite like rounding a curve and coming upon a large field of yellow blooms covering the ground for acres and acres...

Even the small section of field out behind our house that I let go native each summer is looking mostly yellow now. Earlier this year it was mostly reds and purples and blues. It's almost funny the way the earliest flowers bloom in colors from the ends of the spectrum while the colors of summer cluster in the middle.

It's good to see the weather dropping a cooler pattern into the Blue Ridge Mountains (at least for a few days). Watching a weather pattern develop in the upper mountains that was starting to mimic the southern coast was getting a bit scary. And while I know the folks living up there were probably enjoying the milder weather this spring, I don't think they will enjoy the summers that come with it. I remember our first rip into Valle Crucis. That summer as we arrived so did a heat spell. Watching the way the mid 80's wilted those folks left a knowing smile on this Texas native's face, thinking of the weather we had just left behind. The over 100 degree day's at home lasted for weeks that summer.

Living in alternate realities...

When I was growing up, my favorite activities revolved around camping and being in nature. As I started my high school career in Pasadena I even went so far as to take Vocational Agriculture as a means of starting on a career path that I hoped would lead to a career in forestry. Over the years the realities of a life lived changed the dreams, or at least pushed them back into the night where dreams live their own lives. So needless to say when a Google Alert I have running on my name returned a link to this article it was like stepping into the looking glass from long ago and I had to look over my shoulder for the white rabbit...

The forest might seem the perfect setting for someone who was once an eagle.

Gary Boyd, who talked to Athens Rotary Friday about his job as a forester for International Paper Company, “hatched” the Athens High School mascot, Elrod the Eagle, in 1980.

Boyd went on from his glory days as the Golden Eagles mascot Elrod to graduate summa cum laude from Mississippi State with a degree in forestry in 1984. He went to work for Union Camp right out of college.

“My office was the forest for 20-plus years,” Boyd said. “And until the advent of cell phones and pagers, it was great.”

Source: enewscourier, Athens, AL - Forester says the forest was his office for 20-plus years

Now thats a case of deja vu...A whole 'nuther life that coulda been. Way to go Gary...

It looks like today will really feel like summer. At 10am the temperature is already pushing 77 degrees and the humidity is at 74%. Not a pleasant start for a Mother's Day. The weather prognosticators are predicting a high today of about 10 degrees higher...Ouch.