Trying not to embarrass myself by bursting into song...from OKLAHOMA! no less...

**I've been taken to task by an anonymous--but no doubt LOYAL and SUPPORTIVE--reader who thinks my blog is too dark. (Not the editorial content, but the actual color scheme--which is a good thing, because little Wednesday Addams isn't likely to change her mood anytime soon, but she CAN play with fonts and stuff. Because beneath the murderous scowl lives the soul of one who lives to please others. Yes, I know. We've covered this. Moving right along...)

This morning dawned the perfect summer day, like I remember from my early childhood. At nine o'clock, the thermometer registered a relatively crisp sixty-eight degrees, and the breeze felt positively arid compared to the drippy mess it's been lately. The sky glows a deep azure overhead, fading to baby-blue at the horizon, holding the promise of pleasant--but not stifling--heat as the clock creeps past noon. The lake is covered in a bright, white blanket of fog leftover from last night's cold snap.

The fields are better than halfway to harvest; the corn high and tassled, and the bean plants all lush and bushy. We've been low on rain, so the haying's been good--big, rolled bales sit on yellow hills, looking like yo-yos of the gods. And this morning I passed a field that was nothing but green and pink clover, right up to the horizon. It made me hungry.

It's the time of wildflowers growing in clumps alongside the back roads: Queen Anne's Lace, Indian Paintbrush, Tiger-Lilies, and the lovely-but-evil Purple Loosestrife. It's the time when fawns begin to lose their spots and wander on skinny legs away from their mothers, so drivers accustomed to whizzing at sixty between one small town and the next know to use care when passing Bambi's thicket.

It's the kind of morning that refuels my tank, and I'm thankful.