There’s a fiery orange ball that can be seen moving slowly, east to west, across our sky these days. I’m told that in other parts of the country that ball is known as the “sun,” though, here in the drippy Pacific Northwest, “sun” is a word we use so rarely we sometimes forget that it exists.
Legend has it that Alaskan natives have many words for snow; I guess the same is true for “rain” in the languages of the humans who dwell here near the Puget Sound. We have drizzle, mist, showers, cloudbursts, downpours, low-lying fog (heavy or light.) Rain can fall in torrents, squalls, or storms.
You get the idea. It rains a lot here.
Regarding the sun that has appeared the past few weeks in our sky, though, the animals in particular seem to be digging it. The critters lie about in this sunny spot and that. They sleep in the sun, preen in it, dine in it. This will go on for the next two months because July and August tend to be fairly dry here, exceptions to the norm of rain.
We’re so accustomed to rain here that, come the end of summer, we’ll be itchy for the rains to return (which will indeed come to pass.) For now, though, life is good in the sun. The critters and I can deal with this.
