Spring in the South...

After dinner we rolled ourselves out to the back porch where a small but growing super cell, like a mid 1800's Man o' War, was making a south easterly doldrum voyage across the fading sky. I watched mainmast after mainmast build to unbelievable heights only to get flattened out at the top by the prevailing winds. Spreading into gigantic sails to catch the wind and pull the vessel on into the fray. But the billions of icy crystals continued to congeal into massive angry columns as the warm Gulf breezes pushed the humid air into the frigid atmosphere.

As the sun took its leave over the horizon even at 50,000 feet, the columns were still grasping for the last shreds of energy for the ensuing battle with the night. The cyclopean white cauliflower heads turn pink, darkening to an indignant red, finally succombing to choleric azure. As the sky darkened, from below decks, the Galleons cannons began to fire as lightening reached white hot bony fingers out into the night, stealing away the darkness if only for a second. We are too far away to hear the massive thunderous echoes, but the firefight is nonetheless a respiratory thief.

The Royals are running here and there trying desperately to see and catch a small toad that has wondered into the Kingdom. Their happy screams are rewarded by HRHTDP finally nabbing the bewildered intruder. They all run to show us their quarry as he desperately leaps to freedom.

The cows begin their nightly circle to eat a last bite of ever greening fescue out in the pasture before bedding down. The calves jumping and kicking in a familiar sight of our own nightly routine.

Wild turkeys circle one another down at the convergence of cow path and treeline still vying for the affections of the hens, clucking in the fold of the meadow. Spring tree frogs strike up their serenade, greeting the coming night in beautiful harmonic melody with the lonesome call of the Whipporwills buried deep in the stand of blackjacks and undergrowth. The peacocks down the road throw one last insult at the turkeys...

Spring in the South whispers a gentle moist breeze that floats over the skin like cool fresh water after a hot day. I sit back, take a deep breath...

and the Vernal Galleon fires a long cannonade into the blackness...