Summertime in Southwest Florida has a rhythm of its own. It’s a pattern of heat and moisture and rain
and cooling. It’s a time of luxuriant
growth for the plants adapted to it.
It’s also a time when I notice young lizards and birds and bunnies out
and about, learning the ways of the world.
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| Storm coming. |
Our rainy season typically starts the first part of June,
sometimes late May. The days are hot, spilling
over with intense bright light as the clouds start forming. Smaller cotton-ball clouds gather and grow
from the moisture that evaporates and rises from the warming land and
earth-bound waters. Boundless clear blue
skies start filling up with towering cumulus clouds, sometimes building many
miles upwards.
The clouds roll in from the Everglades, sunlit white, gathering
colors of violet, blue, and dark gray along the bottoms and up through the
centers. The air feels a bit cooler when
the clouds hide the sun, but it’s still quite humid. When water saturation reaches a critical
point, the rain starts, typically late afternoon. The other night we had torrential rain off
and on for hours – along with booming thunder and sporadic lightning. Abundant water recharges our underground
aquifers, and brings on an explosion of plant growth.
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| So much nature can be seen in suburban spaces. |
The flowers of spring are turning into fruits now – nearby I
see Simpson stopper ripening, seagrape (still green), cocoplum and more. June flowers are blooming of course: a casual
suburban observer might see common natives like Spanish needles, beach
sunflower, and duck potato easily. These
are just a few volunteers in the space I move within every day, the ones I
happen to stop and notice. I also see
the birds and their nests, an occasional small black snake, and young Eastern
cottontails (one every day!), and other signs of procreation and growth.
This is our lazy summer rhythm, the days hot and humid, then
the clouds and rain, cooler but wet.
Nothing drenches and soaks to the bone like a Florida summer rain. We’ve just passed the Summer Solstice and the
days still feel long, although they are starting to shorten. Our rainy season continues through the lingering
months of July, August and September, and by mid-October I imagine a massive collective
sigh of relief among residents. We may
still have the potential for tropical storms and hurricanes until the end of
November, but at least we’ll be more comfortable.
No matter what's going on in the human world, the natural
world keeps marking time, finding its own rhythms, confirming new life. These are the drumbeats that feed my soul and
the music that helps me make sense of life.
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| Munching on a bit of grass. |
Media:
Mechanical pencil .7mm
Micron Pigma 01, black
Aquabee Super Deluxe Mixed Media sketchbook
Daniel Smith watercolors, Botanical Floral half-pan set
Niji waterbush, round M
