The sun was out. The sky was blue. Puffy white clouds. Miracle of miracles, after these endless rains, the cold, a May more like February. Yesterday was a promise of better times.

And everyone, I mean everyone, was out drying their plumage, preening, soaking up some warmth.

The herons opened their wings to the sun rays, or flying low in a bit of a breeze.

The Bullock’s Oriole (says my bird book) competed with the golden light around it, more interested in getting the gnats out of its feathers than watching the busy swallows right above it.

And the turtles?

Lined up in a row, late comers trying to score a place as well, not too successfully.

Mothers and offspring sharing a log.

Heads stretched up high, opening wet folds, drying out.

Before we get too excited with all those harbingers of better times ahead, let’s be pragmatic. The rains will reappear in the not too distant future, says the weatherman. Good for our parched state, bad for our mood. Lets not be like the theoretic turtle – let’s follow canine advice: work around it and all other nuisances…

The Theoretic Turtle

The theoretic turtle started out to see the toad;
He came to a stop at a liberty-pole in the middle of the road.
“Now how, in the name of the spouting whale,” the indignant turtle cried,
“Can I climb this perpendicular cliff and get on the other side?
If I only could make a big balloon I’d lightly over it fly;
Or a very long ladder might reach the top though it does look fearfully high.
If a beaver were in my place, he’d gnaw a passage through with his teeth;
I can’t do that but I can dig a tunnel and pass beneath.”
He was digging his tunnel with might and main, when a dog looked down at the hole.
“The easiest way, my friend,” said he, “is to walk around the pole.”

by Amos Russel Wells (1862 – 1933)