June mornings start early. The sun announces its impending arrival in waves of color starting shortly after five a.m. First gray, then pink, orange, red, a ball of flame, then gold then forty shades of blue that paint water and sky. That’s the time to be up and about to enjoy the colors of morning.
The avian symphony starts even earlier.
The color show is in the warm golden stage with the sun a foot above the horizon as I stumble down to the beach to greet the day. The birds are well into their second or third movement. Far out on the water the loon calls. I scan the water and listen for laughter. The grey patch of bird floats warily along. I stand still knowing the loon will veer away if it sees movement. It rises from the surface and flaps its wings in that way loons have.
I walk down to water’s edge--it moves further out on the bay.
From the south, just outside the neighbor’s bedroom window apparently, the sand hill cranes that moved into the neighborhood this year, start cackling in their gulping, echoing way. A screaming gull flies by. It is happy, I think. From the woods out back, songbirds chirp, sing, tweet and whistle.
Sunshine on my head and arms and shoulders feels great. I walk around the yard barefoot in the grass to wake up my feet. The cultivated nature is coming along nicely too. Three pale pink peonies are in bloom and lo and behold there are two red-orange roses on a puny little bush. Daisies, that will not grow in the flower bed but grow well in odd spots in the grass, are blooming.
When the daisies bloom it is officially summer in the northland.
I thought to myself--what a wonderful world. Then I went back to bed.
