Cool

September 24, 2017

2017 won’t bring too many more days like today. The thermometer topped out at 84, but the sun added another ten or fifteen degrees to how it felt on the skin. Even Linda, who loves the sun, sat in the shade today. Granddaughter Madeline celebrated birthday number twelve with family and friends gathered at their house for dinner and gifts. We ate outside under the huge maple trees in their yard, protected from the sun. We didn’t even have any coffee, which should give you an inkling of how hot it was. 

No complaints, though. It’s unseasonably warm for this time of year, but things will start to cool as October arrives, and I expect before November is out, we’ll have cranked up the furnace and lit the wood stove more than once. 

Our house sits in a valley; actually, more like a wide ravine, bounded on the back side by the creek with its towering shale cliffs on the far side. Just across the road, the hill rises just as steeply to the village cemetery at the top. Our house itself is shaded by huge Douglas firs in the front to the south, an old chokecherry tree on the east, and a maple and ash on the west. No matter how hot the sun bakes, those trees keep us at least fifteen degrees cooler without having to resort to air conditioning. The upstairs bedroom will be a bit warm tonight as the hot air is doing its best to escape the confines of the room, but for the most part, the house is cool. So tonight, in addition to twelve years of thankfulness for the lovely and gracious Madeline, I am thankful for the free air conditioning, compliments of the trees with their natural cooling mechanism put within them by God himself.