Dry weather

View to the south from Waggoner's Gap hawkwatch

I’m posting one last photo from Waggoner’s Gap—at least until I make another trip to the hawkwatch. This one is looking to the south and towards Roundtop, which is the fourth bump in the distance from the left. When I looked at the view from my perch at the hawkwatch, I enjoyed how clear everything looked. But when I looked at my photos from the trip, the view is quite a bit more hazy than I remembered it.

At Roundtop it has now been three weeks since I’ve seen any rain. The forest crackles underfoot. Dust rises like smoke from every step. The next chance of rain isn’t until Sunday and that isn’t a very good chance. If I don’t get any rain then, another week will pass before any chance returns again.

So perhaps it’s because of the dry weather that not much is going on around the cabin right now. Birds seem to have disappeared almost entirely. Butterflies are nearly gone. The closest thing to excitement was seeing a small raccoon on my morning walk with Dog. The raccoon was low in a tree, on its way down the tree, I think, when it spied us and hustled back up. I only saw it because of my headlamp. Dog never saw it, which is just as well, as that would mean a pulling fest between the two of us, and 5:45 a.m. is simply too early for that kind of effort.

Yesterday marked the first day this season that I could see the constellation Orion high in the morning sky. Facing due south, the constellation is about at 11 a.m. on a clock face. The moonless sky and ever-later dawn combined to make the old warrior visible yet again. I’ve spied the constellation as early as the end of August, but this year the moon and clouds conspired to keep it from my view until now. Welcome back!