It's HOT! Let's go down to the river!

Hello to all my wonderful, beautiful and special Gather friends! Hope you're staying cool in your neck of the great Gather Nation... Here at jeanz place in the wild hinterlands of Northern California it was 98-degrees yesterday and today they're expecting the ole mercury to top out at a whopping 103-degrees!

I'm not complaining, mind you... Those who know me well know that I don't stop feeling chilly until it gets in the high 90s, so I'm happy as a clam with the forecast! (I know... I know... It's weird. I'M weird... Hey, they don't call me "just the teensiest bit odd" fer nuthin', ya know!)

Anyway, late yesterday afternoon, I packed up my trusty Canon and a towel -- put on my new bathing suit and drove down to the summer bridge over the Russian River about a mile away at the former Swiss Colony at Asti. (Yep... That's right! Formerly the home of that "little, ole winemaker"!)

The highway department just opened the bridge for the season a few days ago... I don't know WHY they wait so long to open it -- it gives those of us who live on River Road a shortcut to the south which is the direction where the larger towns and most everything you might need to do is... It will stay open until sometime in October when it will be back to making a HUGE circle around to the freeway for all of us. :^(

I parked the Jeep, climbed over the rocky berm and hiked down to the water.

Not another soul was about... The palmated plovers on the shore sounded an alert (you can find a photo of them HERE) as I tied my long skirt up in a loose knot above my knees and waded out to some large rocks in the middle of the river where I put down my belly-pack and towel.

(I really liked the reflections of the trees in the water in that shot! ;o) )

The cool water felt so refreshing! :o)

It's a beautiful little spot there at Asti with the swallows catching insects -- swooping and diving all around...

Having decided, I suppose, that the crazy old lady with the camera wasn't really a threat after all, the plovers cut off their alarm and, with the exception of the very occasional vehicle crossing the bridge, the trickle of water over the rocks and the bloop-blooping of a fish breaking the water here and there to snatch a bug from the surface, all was silent...

A solitary leaf floated towards me in the shallows:

and, struck by the "zen-ness" of the moment, I was moved to compose a haiku to describe it:

At dusk in the heat,

a small leaf floats slowly by --

the still of summer...

Not too bad, eh? ;o)

I liked the looks of this green moss clinging to a rock -- undulating in the slow, river current:

I spied this little guy, sitting on a rock downriver... I knew he wasn't a plover but had to look him up in one of my reference books to discover what he was and, even now, I'm not 100% sure but, I'm about 98% sure that he's a "dowitcher":

Sonoma County is known to have a huge population of both "long-billed" and "short-billed" dowitchers but, from what I have read, it's difficult even for an expert to tell the difference between them, so, I won't even try. ;o)

Well -- after a time, the sun began to disappear down behind the hills to the west...