Sitting Waiting!

The weather has been exceptionally hot, but that’s not really unusual for the end of July. We have been lucky, no fires have started in our area…yet.

After the last few years, “yet” is an amazing thing.

Funny, how I expect the worse, before I pray for the best.

Believe me when I say, that I have prayed, to whatever higher power may be listening, asking to please, please leave us a summer without the fear of a forest fire, raging through, taking with it the things we hold dear.

I pray aloud, that for one summer, we will be left in peace to breathe the pure, clean, sweet mountain air, the air we came to the mountains to find.

Not the sour, harsh, and at times, putrid tang of air filled with wood smoke. Smoke that burns our nostrils, stings our eyes, and turns our voices harsh with abrasion!

I sit here on my deck, the heat is slowly beginning to lessen. Not soon enough though, I hear a quiet rumbling coming from those clouds slowly moving over us from the East.

We may get lucky, fingers crossed that the system will stay over the Columbia, leaving us here in the Shuswap alone, sitting here on the edge, of Mother Nature’s full fury..

So far, we are only getting the quiet warnings, that it may be possible to turn ugly very quickly if the winds come along with the cloud.

Normally, it is a peaceful time of evening. The sun is still low in the sky, the temperature is a bit cooler.

That is If we can call the high 20’s cooler.

The air, is very still, the trees stand sentinel, and majestic. The depth of green varies with the different trees, the Maple’s leaves are broad, and at different levels of maturity. The hemlock, is almost regal in her stance. Watching over everything, her head, bowing to the world above.

The grass, it is a brilliant, verdant green, lighter in colour than the trees, but giving a depth of colour so beautifully to the landscape of my yard..

I don’t think it’s going to rain, none of the trees leaves have turned calling for it. The birch, and poplar, always announce the rain before it comes.

Soon the cloud will move completely overhead, coming in from the East, the Sun, as she sets, will continue to shine below them, turning the world, a multitude of soft pastel colours.

I watch dusk slowly arrive, as the last of the sun’s rays disappear gently into the western horizon.

The thunder is still quietly making herself known. Warning all within the range of her voice, that the possibilities are endless, regardless of what we ask for.