Living quietly

The rain this season has forced us Texans indoors and made for a more quiet summer.  We’re grateful for the end of the drought here in Texas, but the continued thunderstorms after Tropical Storm Bill?  Mother Nature is just showing off.  The horses have barely gotten to run around their paddocks this summer and have gotten naughty and bored with cabin fever.  I haven’t been able to take Ryon on the trail in over two months, as the ground has been too soggy, and we run the danger of pulling a shoe.  Last week, they discovered a dead body alongside the trail (normal normal for Dallas) that had floated downstream, cause of death still unreleased to the public.  Come to think of it, maybe eschewing the trail for the summer hasn’t been all that bad after all.

DMagazine

The walking path that we spent 3 hours on earlier this spring has been underwater and overrun by the Trinity River for the past month, resurfaced very briefly for a week, and is again submerged.  As a consequence, the pedestrian bridge has been busy each night as Dallasites photograph the different stages of the swollen river.  The water is a constantly rushing, swirling vortex of brown murkiness that you’d not want to dip your toe into.

In Paris (always Texas), we’ve dug up potatoes and fat juicy earthworms - almost more earthworms than potatoes - and brought home some beautiful banana peppers this past weekend.  Grey evenings have been spent air conditioned and indoors, peeking out at the gloaming in between chapters of graphic novels and episodes of Penny Dreadful.  Even watching dinosaurs eat All The People on the big screen and monster trucks wreak havoc in the Australian desert happens at 10 am on damp Sunday mornings.  The longest day of the year was punctuated with flash thunderstorms, with the sky erupting one second and clearing to crystal blue the next.

Reluctantly, I’ve grown to love the indoor time, the forced relaxation, and the additional accidental naps.  But at heart, I’m a sun worshipper and you can bet your boots that when the sun is out, I’m frolicking about in the heat (with plenty of water) the best I can.  Send some sunshine my way, would you please?