Midsummer Florida

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. 

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.

 

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. 

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

As summer sighs into fall

 Silent wet earth beneath dry and papery leaf quilts, woven and stitched by summer, and a new story begins.  Fall to me always feels like a time of resting, a pause, a completion, but also a preparation for the next chapter.

 In southwestern Florida it is a quiet story, bathed in cooler breezes and high-weather clouds.  The sky a different blue, more hints of violet than the turquoise of summer.

A bit tattered and faded
at the end of summer, but still thriving.

 Many shades of brown beneath my feet crumble as I step; my nose flares with the rich earthy fragrance of decomposition.  Flashes of green against the deeply corrugated oak bark: a sturdy vine, thick as my thumb, grips with tiny tendrils to climb the sunlit canopy.  Virginia creeper -- this summer it has not been creeping, but steadily pacing itself, suddenly five more feet of leafy vines cover walls and tree trunks.

 The tiny greenish-white summer blooms became small green berries, and are now a velvety navy blue on scarlet stems, ready for bird and wildlife consumption.  A few of the leaves are already blushing with the cooler weather.

 

The slash pine tree has added girth – almost impossibly so.  Surely ki was a slender youngster not that long ago.  Now a stately column, dressed in large plates of bark in rust and gray and tan.  The cones will be dropping soon, hiding nut-seeds under tight scales, waiting for the time to open and feed the squirrel families nearby.  Right now the squirrels seem to be feasting on live oak acorns, sea grape and coco plum fruits. 

 The fruits of summer will continue as the marlberries ripen and new acorns continue to drop.  The wild coffee and Simpson stopper berries did not last long, but I think there may be some wild grapes out there.  These are all I have to offer, but I like to think that it’s enough of a way-station among the unsafe harbors.   

 Chittering background birds.  A mockingbird flips a tail and scolds.  Anoles skitter and skate through damp leaves.  A quiet time, but still full with the sounds of life.  There is alchemy brewing as summer sighs, and autumn whispers new secrets into the breeze. 

A flash of yellow, and fluttering wings in the birdbath.

 Media used: 

Canson All-media 90 lb. sketchbook
Mechanical pencil and Micron Pigma black artist pen 01
Mission Gold watercolors