I hope everybody had a great summer and is now ready to buckle down and start dealing with getting kids on the bus and helping out with homework. I don’t have to handle any of that, but I know that many people do. Like July, August brought those of us in north central Florida plenty of heat and less than normal amounts of rainfall. The heat was bad enough that I really didn’t venture outside as much as usual, and I’ve lived here for over thirty years. I limited my outside time to early in the morning or just before dark, and even then it was hot! The heat and dry weather also kept a lot of the wildlife in hiding and some of the plants from flowering normally.

Then, at the end of August, everything changed. Hurricane Idalia made landfall about 50 miles north of here in Keaton Beach, Florida. It’s the first time in recorded history that we have had a hurricane make landfall here. We’ve had many of them sit off the coast for several days before moving on, but none have ever come ashore before. I’m a little ways inland and at a fairly high elevation (for Florida), so all was fine here. As dry as it’s been we hardly even had any puddles! Unfortunately, Keaton Beach, Cedar Key, and quite a few other coastal towns took a lot of water and have had quite a bit of damage. My heart goes out to those folks, and it will be weeks before some of them are back in their homes.

Since hurricane Idalia, the weather has been much better. We’ve been seeing highs in the upper eighties (instead of upper nineties) and we’ve had several afternoon showers. I’ve been able to take several short hikes and I’ve had a couple of very successful photo sessions right here in my own yard. Right after the storm the winged sumac blossomed beautifully and brought many pollinators, including some that are associated more with fall, to them. The blackjacks are also finally flowering. The plants have been growing, but there had been no flowers until we got some rain. The sumacs only last a short time, but the blackjacks will stay with us until the first hard freeze. Our fall butterflies love the blackjack, so I hope to get some images of them soon.

The end of August (okay, early September) also brought Labor Day, which is our first fall holiday. To celebrate, I took a nice hike in the morning and put together a video for my blog in the afternoon. You can find the video on my blog at www.deeesler.com . Video is not my medium of choice for creating, but I was pretty pleased with the final results. In the meantime, I am also back at work in a private veterinary practice and really enjoying it. It’s only part time, giving me the flexibility to continue working on my artwork and to spend time with my own animals and family. Overall, life is good. I hope that all of you are also happy and doing well and that you are looking forward to fall as much as I am. Come and visit me at www.deeesler.com to see some new artworks and blog posts and feel free to contact me at whatnextphotoandart@deeesler.com any time. I love hearing from you guys!