To stroll…that’s about all one can do when temperatures reach the 90s. Ever since the weather became nice this spring, I try to get out for a walk or a hike over my lunch hour. It is wonderful to get outside and stomp around on Buzzard’s Roost and Falling Rock, both of which are just a five to ten minute drive from the clinic. But it has gradually gotten too warm for hiking. Strolling must commence.
There is a little “wilderness loop” trail even closer to the clinic than my other two favorite spots, which starts at Canyon Lake and follows Rapid Creek and feels relatively rural, even though it isn’t. The geese and ducks were congregated along the shore today. All the moms and dads and their little goslings and ducklings were paddling about, bathing, cooling off. They had the right idea.
The cottonwoods are dropping their seeds this time of year, leaving the ground drifted with white, as if with snow. Flowers and leaves are frosted with the downy fluff. It swirled around the path under my feet, and floated through the air like snowflakes.
In spite of the lack of rain recently, everything is still so green, so vivid, so full of life. The ponderosas almost look dull next to the flamboyant wildflowers and the glowing green of the cottonwoods. The grasses are still lush. Yet soon all the spring newness will give way to the summer, the greens will fade to brown, and a different array of colors will be abundantly displayed. How well our world is ordered, seasons coming and going without fail.
How well God watches over and equips His Creation.
A passel of butterflies was flittering around the little cove, and finally obliged by posing for a picture. They weren’t bothered by the heat! What color and life in such a tiny creature. 
We’d been there an hour when the sky clouded over a bit and the temperatures cooled – It looked like a storm was brewing, but other than a small rumble of thunder, nothing materialized.
Song Dog Journal 