The dogs were chewing on the dried grapes leaves killed in the recent frosts as I sat in our carport Saturday afternoon, letting the sun dry my Levi’s after having endured yet another installment of backyard sprinkler repair. I had just extracted a broken nipple from a threaded elbow that connects to one of the heads and got a little wet as I tested my fix. It was a fairly simple undertaking after acquiring the right tool from my friends at ABC Plumbing. On a scale of one-to-five, with one being having to replace a nozzle and five being a flooded basement because someone didn’t shut off the water to the valve manifold during winter, allowing it to freeze then burst, this repair rated about a 2.3.
The sun felt good as I looked around the yard. The day lilies, wilted and yellowed, had seen better days though. The same could be said of the russian sage and most of the roses, too.
Rafa, our two-year-old aussie, plopped half of himself in my lap as I sat in the sun; he’ll do that whenever he want some attention and thinks I’m being idle. I ended up giving him a long overdue brush resulting in dog hair going everywhere. As I collected most of Rafa’s fur, I saw a butterfly laying in the carport, along the fence. It had seen better days as well, much better days.
On Sunday, Monica and I drove up to Colorado Springs to rendezvous with the Fischers for an equestrian event in which our niece Julia was taking part. The event ran long, but the up side to that was it gave Kirk, Cristina, Monica, and myself a chance to visit. And I learned a thing or two about equitation, too.
As we waited for Julia’s class to compete, her sister Anna I went outside and each took a photo of the sunset, she with her iPod, and I with my iPhone. It was one of the those dramatic “Fall of Day” sort of sunsets, glorified by Led Zeppelin’s Swan Song label. It was only a few minutes past six. Next Sunday, daylight savings time ends and it’ll be dark just after five or so. By the time we left the event, it was indeed night time and the temperature had dropped into the 40s. A month ago, it would have been just a balmy evening.
“Summer days,” if I may quote Bob Dylan, “and the summer nights are gone.” Fall has definitely fell.
