Some years, such as the year that Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the storms all miss our area. Then the heat remains oppressive into late Autumn, and drought deepens.
I left work at 5 p.m. after a very productive work day to find rain was falling in huge, lovable droplets. I drove in Breckinridge Park in the rain and watched the killdeer cavort. The swallows were not yet out. I saw an American kestrel fly overhead. The heat fell from 100 degrees F (~ 37.75 C) to 80 degrees F (~ 26.67 C.). I stopped at Shawnee Park where, like me, people walked in sprinkly conditions, thankful for the rain. A woman walked in circles around the pond, talking on her cell phone with animation. I watched the green heron on the lily pads hunt insects. I listened to a podcast about computer hardware, which is poor birding, as I miss the birdsong,but grand fun anyway.
My wife and I took our friend Beatrice for a walk in our neighborhood. We ran into Beatrice's only canine friend, a lovely Shih Tzu named Diva. We got into a long discussion with Diva's owner, who told us of growing up as one of ten children in a farm in southern Illinois. She described how her mother went to market once a month to buy flour and salt, and the family grew, raised and canned on the farm all they needed to eat. As the dark set in, cottontail rabbits came out. A man with a huge camera lens took many pictures of the orange-red-white sunset.
Now I am watching a documentary film on PBS about Dorothea Lange. I am delighted that, as has happened so many Labor Day weekends before, the heat broke tonight.