TheBanyanTree: Pinnacle

[Margaret R. Kramer]

I know it’s the height of summer because the acorns are almost mature on the
oak trees in our backyard.  I hear the squirrels rustling leaves as they
wrestle these treats from the branches.

However, the ripening of the acorns hasn’t deterred three baby squirrels
from trying break into my finch feeder this morning.  I bought a “squirrel
free” bird feeder last week.  The squirrels had destroyed my other feeder.
This one has a cage around it and it’s been interesting to watch these three
babies rapidly circling the cylinder trying to figure out how to get at the
seed through the cage.  So far they haven’t been able to do much except
shake the feeder enough so the loose seed falls into the pan at the bottom.
Just eat the acorns, guys!

The rain has stopped for a couple of days.  It’s warmed up, although it’s
nothing like the hot, humid summers we know and love.  But it’s been warm
enough to wear shorts and a tank top.  I can finally show off my fake tan!
We can leave the windows open at night and wake up to fresh coolish air
drifting through the house.

It’s stopped raining long enough to have clear skies in the morning when I’m
driving to go work out.  It’s 4 am and very few cars are on the street as I
head to the club.  The crescent moon was hanging in the eastern sky this
past week, almost outshining a bright planet and a small twinkling
companion.  I haven’t looked up what planets these must be, but my gut says
the larger one is either Venus or Mars, and the smaller one might be
Jupiter.

After being cooped up in the house so much this summer, because it was
raining or too cold, Ray and I finally were able to take an after dinner
walk in the park this week.  We call it the path park, because of the
walking paths.  It’s about a mile and a half around the outer perimeter of
the park.

A delicious scent was in the air.  The clover was in full bloom with shades
of purple dotting the lush green of all kinds of grasses.  The milkweed was
blooming.  The black-eyed susans were blooming.  There were tiny yellow
flowers and their light violet friends blooming in little rows along the
path.  The cattails next to the ponds were growing tall and strong.

A few people whizzed by us on their bikes.  A few walkers said, “hello.”  We
saw swallows swirling above the ponds gobbling up insects.  Ducks we couldn’
t identify were gliding over the pond waters.  They weren’t mallards, they
were smaller and had long skinny necks.  We did see a family of mallards,
parents and babies clustered together on the larger pond.  We saw a white
heron at the edge of one of the smaller ponds.

There was a lone doe in the far meadow eating some of the grasses.  The deer
around here are so used to us, they barely blink an eye when they see
humans.  Ray crunched his pop can trying to get her attention.  She looked
up, gave us a stare, like she was saying, “Whatever,” and went back to her
munching.

We walked with summer slowness.  This was not a walk to get the heart rate
up and the sweat slopping out of our pores.  It was walk for our spirits, a
slow deliberate walk to inhale summer, suck it in and never let it out, to
comfort us in the winter days ahead.  It was a walk to try to hold in time
this warm summer moment, at the height, at the pinnacle of summer evenings
when the sun teases us by not giving way to night and the evenings seem to
stretch out forever.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net

http://www.polarispublications.com
Be a star!

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Business and Professional Women of Minnesota

To him in whom love dwells, the whole world is but one family.
~Buddha