By Louie Ferrera

It’s the first real heatwave of summer, the day is languid and lazy. The drone of my neighbor’s air conditioner, the jingle-jangle of the wind chimes when a welcome breeze blows through, the blip-blop of our fountains and the insect like buzz of a small airplane are all part of this dreamy soundscape. Hummingbirds have been scarce so far this summer but when one whizzes by to visit a feeder the sound is unmistakable: zivvv, click, buzzz.

All of our trees are now fully leafed out and impossibly, gloriously green so the birds are more often heard than seen. The Stellar’s jay squawks, this creature is the head avian honcho around here and always has first dibs at the feeder and fountains. Summer is when the western tanagers show up. The female is a drab yellow-green and barely stands out among the foliage of the trees. But the male, oh my! Its body is an electric, sunshiny, pulsating shade of yellow, the crown of its head the most brilliant hue of red/orange. The tanager declares, and in no uncertain terms, “Summer’s here and so am I!” Nature’s greatest mimic, the Northern mockingbird is a one bird band, singing all four parts in a crazy quartet of calls. A cabbage butterfly, an angel on the wing, zig-zags by investigating the in’s and outs of a tangerine bush.

At the peak heat of the day, our squash and bean plants wilt as if to say, “Enough is enough!” Our cat Ella has found refuge beneath the shade of the apple tree. Curled like a question mark she’s content to doze away the afternoon. The lawn needs a trim  but I think I’ll let it go a little longer. You see there are hundreds of white clover blossoms among the blades of grass and the honeybees are loving life, zipping from one flower to the next. The entire lawn is alive with them.

A day like this is the perfect advertisement for a cold beer. I grab one from the fridge then put it into the freezer for a few minutes just to make sure it is teeth cracking cold. I bring the bottle outside and it’s immediately coated with condensation, the golden contents obscured by thousands of tiny droplets. The first deep pull off of a beer on a day such as this is one of the great simple pleasures to be found in life.

There’s been lots of crazy weather lately around the country, not unexpected in these topsy turvy times of climate change. The headlines scream all types of hyperbole and terrifying warnings. Where I live, it’s simply summer and summers here get hot. When the temperatures climb into the upper 90’s I’m not going to panic. Right now a cool breeze is blowing, the sky is bluer than a newborn’s eyes and the fridge is stocked with beers. I think it’s time for another one