Saturday evening, we strolled a favorite walking route in reverse and were handsomely rewarded. The pinnacle of summer splendor, a cool breeze and everything hushed, as if the sunset tamped the sound so we might hear the wondrous whoosh of pink and orange and gold.

It is August! Summer is waning already! We have done much – hiked and wandered, completed scads of home improvements (new kitchen light fixtures, cement repair, caulking, dry rot repair, new bark mulch, painted and painted some more). There is still much to do. There is more painting, lots, ugh and drat. There will be travel to a forest (the Allegheny), a bridge (the Kinzua), and a waterfall (Niagara!), and visits to museums (the Carnegie and Mattress Factory). Guests are coming! Beth and Peter and Hazel and Martha and Alan. The room is ready. The view is splendid. There is boxed air conditioning, tested and ready.

Which reminds me, we are surviving humidity rather splendidly, sweating like the dickens more often than we’d like but only retreating to the cool comfort of the air conditioned TV room a couple of times. Tough and stubborn buggers, I like to think, though our ceiling fans whir near constantly, even while sleeping. Moving air is a marvelous thing.

The butterflies (this one a black Swallowtail), taking a line from the Beastie Boys, “Sure Shot”. They can’t and they won’t and they don’t stop!