Starry starry night

It's that time of year again folks. The annual Perseid meteor shower is expected to be at its best this year, producing one or two meteors per minute during peak hours. Best viewing will be between about 11:00pm and dawn EST. With no moon to interfere it should be a great one this year. Definitely worth losing some sleep over.

Meanwhile, all is well on the deck. I woke up this morning to the hummers' raucous wrangling over access to the feeder which remains -- knock on wood -- ant free and there was only one rather confused looking ant wandering into the bait trap. It was so foggy that you could barely see the tree line across the McCompound but that's burned off now and it's a pretty nice day. The sun is shining and the air is reasonably clear for August.

The sun feels good this morning. The heat wave broke yesterday and it was probably in the high 70s in the morning. After a week of cloying heat, I was cold. I wore a sweater until about 3:00 when the sun finally broke out.

I went to the store in the evening and saw a flock of Monarchs on the shrubbery around the parking lot. The myrtles are in full bloom everywhere you look. It was cool enough to wear long pants. I drove home thinking that sometimes I really love living in the south.