a hint perhaps

I have been complaining non-stop about the non-stop heat but the last several evenings have been rather pleasant and this morning, before the sun got high enough in the sky, it almost felt like perhaps fall was really going to come around. Of course that feel in the air was fleeting but it does give one hope. The forecast for the coming week shows more tolerable highs in the upper 80s to low 90s.

No such respite from the dryness though. Yesterday my oft wrong weather app said thunderstorms in Wharton all day! Well, overcast and the sound of distant rumbling but no rain. It will rain in the distance, often raining on the cotton field that I can see looking out the window where I sit but it will move around us as if in response to an invisible shield or deflector. Looking just now it says we will have thunderstorms for the next seven days. That would be awesome but I'd settle just for one day of good hard rain, the kind that soaks in.

I've written about seeing newly hatched anoles and that continues, even saw a just hatched skink scurry into the leafy debris yesterday. They are so tiny and so fully aware. 

I haven't been seeing any of the little spotted geckos that chirp in the night and wonder if they were all washed away by the flood. And not so many birds as we used to have. Where are the chickadees and titmice and wrens?

So many small signs that summer is coming to an end...the little hatchings going on, the general loss of tired foliage, the shortening days, the pampas grass starting to send up new plumes.

I've been busy, finished two more tile models after giving up on the flower for now. These two are meant to be simple and quick and relatively inexpensive and are intended to decorate a couple of boxes, testing a new way of displaying my work.

Those done, I made another trip to the paint store for more color samples for the exterior of the house and spent the rest of the day with them spread out on my desk trying out different combinations.