Early Summer Morning

It is 7:00 AM and it is 79 degrees out. There is a big dark cloud covering part of the sky, but I can see the sun trying to burn it off. Since my backporch faces east, I usually share my morning tea with the rising sun.

I love the very early morning. The hummingbirds are fighting with each other over the feeder (they do not like to share). Four of them dodge and dive at each other, while their high-pitched chirping fills the morning silence. But it is not completely silent, I can hear some lawn sprinklers somewhere on the block. My dogs are stretched out on the grass, not even noticing the tiny hummers battling above their heads.

I know that the sun is going to win the battle with that cloud. There will be no rain today. It will be another hot, sunny Texas summer day. Sometimes I long for a dark, gray rainy day. When I lived up north, we had lots of those. And they used to depress me. But when you have been living for ten years in a place where 60% of the year is constant sun, you actually look forward to those rare gray days.

When we get storms, they tend to be violent. The rain sweeps down in torrents, and the thunder is loud. Very rarely do we get those soft rains. I would love to wake up in the morning to the sound of a gentle rain and a dark day. The kind of rain that lasts all day and encourages you to curl up with a book and a cup of tea.