today's count

A perfect Saskatchewan summer day.  Sunshine, warm, dry, windy.  Shorts, barefoot in the grass, straw hat.  Two gophers, one in a hole a few feet from where I sat who began to get used to the idea I was there.  A big orange bumblebee.  A dragonfly.  The daycare kids in bright colours like flowers.  Blades of grass showing lime green in the sunlight. The leaves budding out, turning the trees a hazy green. The smell of them, still sticky and sweet.

today's count

More precisely yesterday and the day before and today.  Heat.  Lots of heat.  And not the heat granted us by this imaginary climate change of the planet which has caused increasing humidity in Saskatchewan over the last fifteen years, the heat the clings to you like a sick child.  No, this is the heat of memory, childhood memory, that brushes dry across your skin, lets you know it is all around you, a hot breath, but never more than touches you.  This heat I love, for its memories, for its separateness.  This heat comes under a cloudless sky.  This heat releases you the moment you step into the shade of a tree.  It can not follow you there.  This heat dries the sprinkler water from you before you get back to the office from your coffee break. This heat is the summer I grew up in, when blue was all above for weeks on end.  Put your feet in the river, sit under a tree and listen for the humm of the bees in the blossoms of the crabapple trees.

Today's count

Back from the crabapple grove.  Ten robins, two gophers, a crow, a bumblebee (my second today), and a black butterfly.

This is a free bumble bee that you can colour.