Hello on this beautiful sunny summer morning!  Even if it isn’t morning when you read this.  Many people are not morning people.  I am.  I love how fresh it smells early in the morning.  I love sitting beside a calm lake.  I love listening to the loons calling to each other across the water.  I love watching a blue heron walking stealthily along the shore in search of minnows, frogs, insects or whatever else it can grab in that long beak of his. I love watching a kingfisher diving from a branch into the water after a minnow, spreading ripples across the calm surface of the lake.

I love watching the summer sun rise over the lake casting long shadows as its golden rays touch the trees or the long grass by the shore of the lake.  Everything seems to really come alive at this point.  Even though many birds are up and singing long before the sun rises, yet now there is just so much more singing in the trees.  Speaking of trees, there, sitting on a poplar is a gray tree frog in all of its brilliant emerald green color.  Yes, that’s right.  The gray tree frog is green.  Apparently in some places it is actually gray.  Amazing really.  But why not?  A purple finch is red.  A red squirrel is brown.

I love walking by the lake shore and looking for water loving flowers.  There are many of them.  Hard to find in town though since people tend to pick them all.  It is so sad when people pick wildflowers.  Some never bloom again when picked.  Others might, but people usually don’t know how to pick them properly and just rip them up by the roots. Well, that ends that flower.  That’s why it is so hard to find certain wildflowers close to people.  Especially if they are the more beautiful varieties.  And it’s impossible to convince people to leave them alone.  I have said it before, take a picture, lasts longer than a picked flower and it leaves it for someone else to enjoy.

I love watching a beaver in the early morning sun as it swims back to its home after spending the night cutting down some food for itself.  They glide so smoothly and quietly through the water, barely making a ripple in the surface.  Occasionally something will scare it and then up comes that broad flat tail and smack!  Like a loud gunshot echoing across the lake.  And the beaver is gone.  But just wait a few minutes and it is back to the surface further down the lake, still heading home.

I love to wait until the first slight breeze begins to blow causing the leaves of the trembling aspen to flutter just lightly.  It doesn’t take much of a breeze to make those leaves move and they are always the first to pick up that breeze.  Just a gentle whisper.

I love to watch a flock of white pelicans flying over a calm lake.  Their reflection mirrored so perfectly as they fly silently past.  I also love to watch them as they sit and sun themselves on some rocks.  Or preen their feathers with those huge beaks they have. It’s amazing how they can even do it with their beaks.  But they don’t seem to have any trouble at all.  These are big birds with up to 10 foot (3m) wingspan.  Larger than our eagles.  And to watch them dive into the water after fish is quite a sight indeed.

Ahh, there is nothing quite like an early morning in the summer.  Such beauty to enjoy.  What an amazing way to begin each new day.  And you don’t need a lake either.  A river.  A stream.  A forest location.  Your own backyard.  I don’t even have a yard, just a deck.  But there is still so much beauty to see and hear.  And for me, I’m not far from the lake here.

Well, I hope you have enjoyed our little time by the lake this morning.  Please come again and until next time, enjoy your day and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

© 2019 Steve McLeod.