Thursday earlier

 

3:11 a.m. For an early morning in late August, the way summer 2023 has been so far, it's surprisingly pleasant out here on 7H porch. 79°F with a fair breeze coming in off the Bay and Gulf. First mug of hot & black and the other half of a peanut butter sandwich Linda made for me after supper soup last evening.

Life is Good, and if nobody was hurt or killed in Hurricane Idalia Life is Better, Best. And also, Life is Fun and Good with personal computers, wifi and the web, and modern meteorology that tells us where a storm is going days out, and that gives us weather radar to stay right on top of a hurricane as it makes its way toward us. It's all so different from my growing up days, when everything was guess and wait and see. 

On the other hand, it's not Good, much less Better Best, that warming and warmer seas are producing faster and fiercer tropical storms. Though these tropical systems are a natural and normal part of creation's looking after itself, herself, theirself.

Splashes in the Bay at my feet seven levels down, and the raucous squawk of a wading bird who may be catching an early breakfast of minnows. Quite splashy down there. Not mullet jumping, it's not that kind of splash, it's a wading in shallow water sort of splashing. It must be that the light of the moon on the Bay surface makes the minnows more visible. Wishing the wader a good breakfast, and glad not to be a minnow.

Glad not to be a wading bird too, as I've seen what happens when one strolls carelessly up to what it apparently failed to realize was not a log - - a risk of Florida life in the wild anywhere there's a fresh water lake or pond.

Blue moon, second full moon of August, a magical extra-close supermoon that won't be repeated until 2037. Moonrise last evening: it came up in the east very coyly, hiding behind remnant hurricane band clouds and peeking out like some bashful maiden. 

At the 3:59 a.m. moment, the moon is quite high in the west, and I don't expect to be out here, but back in bed for a long morning's nap by the Time it's into its setting. 

RSF&PTL

T